Social media: A new age for politics
Posted on Oct 2, 2024 by FEED Staff
In the midst of major elections, we explore how social media plays a part in today’s politics – for better or worse
Words by Katie Kasperson
Most of us have likely heard the name Cambridge Analytica tossed around in conversations about politics and data privacy. In the mid-2010s, the British consulting firm harvested data from millions of Facebook users, using it to create psychographic profiles and tailored political advertisements (a tactic also known as microtargeting).
The firm was found to have played a role in the 2016 US presidential election, particularly aiding candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump – the latter of whom went on to win the presidency. While, across the pond, Cambridge Analytica was accused of interfering with the Brexit referendum.
It’s been eight years since the 2016 election shook up American politics and Britain voted ‘yes’ to leave the EU. In that time, we’ve introduced new regulations (like the GDPR), experienced a global pandemic and witnessed an insurrection on the US Capitol.
Platforms like TikTok have taken off while Twitter has taken a hit, having rebranded to X (though few have colloquially adopted the new title). Social media plays a different yet still significant role today; with 2024 being the biggest global election year in recent history, we explore why social media matters more than ever.
Going viral
TikTok has fast become one of the most powerful tools in a politician’s arsenal, especially for those trying to reach young voters. Its algorithm tailors content to the individual user on their For You page and makes it incredibly easy for a video to go viral, reaching millions in mere days (sometimes faster). For political candidates, the more eyes on campaign material, the better.
TikTok has been somewhat divisive during the run-up to the 2024 US presidential election. Before withdrawing from the race, incumbent candidate Joe Biden turned his efforts towards the platform back in February, hoping it would aid in his re-election, but his approach to social media felt highly manufactured – especially after he signed the bill to ban TikTok earlier this year (an act originally proposed by former president Trump, to clarify). Biden is out of touch with young, online voters – even those of his own party; his VP and the current Democratic candidate Kamala Harris is much more attuned to this demographic.
Trump also caved, joining TikTok in June and amassing three million followers in his first two days on the app – casting quite a shadow over Biden’s lowly 350,000. Despite having the go-around with X (being removed and then reinstated after Elon Musk purchased the platform) and facing a two-year ban from Instagram and Facebook, Trump’s social media expansion has gone rather smoothly compared to Biden’s.
Trump’s assassination attempt – which a 20-year-old Pennsylvanian male carried out at a campaign rally on 13 July – marked perhaps the most viral moment of the 2024 election thus far. After surviving the attempt, Trump rose up with his fist in the air – an evocative image captured by photojournalist Evan Vucci, which was subsequently shared all across the internet. The incident will undoubtedly go down in history as a major political event, and it’s thanks to social media that many people saw it.
While 78-year-old Trump has a natural way with social media, Biden – in his eighties – has demonstrated an inability to connect with young voters. By contrast, Harris is 59 – still older than the average TikTok user (the majority of whom are under 35) but significantly younger than many of her political counterparts – and has 4.1 million TikTok followers at the time of writing. Of the three, Biden undoubtedly struggled the most with being out of touch, which was only amplified by social media – a place where political activism often takes shape.
Instagram activism
On 7 October 2023, Hamas – a Palestinian militant group – launched an attack on Israel as a response to ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, particularly along the Gaza Strip. A highly contentious topic and one entrenched in religious roots, the Israel-Hamas conflict garnered international news coverage, spurred support for Palestine (particularly among university students) and incited wrath among voters over their leaders’ complacency on the matter.
In December, the UN General Assembly organised a vote for ceasefire in Gaza; the UK abstained, while the US voted against the resolution. The breaking news came directly from the UN, which tweeted the results in addition to a link to live coverage. Within minutes, social media exploded.
Voters in the US and UK who usually align themselves with the major left-leaning parties (Democratic and Labour, respectively) have wavered in their support, thanks in large part to their candidates’ wishy-washy responses to the war in Gaza. With Biden and Harris accused of siding with genocide (they’ve continued to provide Israel with military aid) and Labour’s leader Keir Starmer having faced similar backlash, young, actively online voters are left with much to say but almost nothing to do, with the Republican and Tory parties serving, for them, as invalid alternatives. Though Starmer won the UK general election on 4 July, replacing Rishi Sunak as prime minister, many people voted for less-popular parties like Green and Independent.
The Israel-Hamas conflict is arguably one of the biggest issues shaping these elections and has been since last October. Take Rochdale, for example, a British constituency that saw the Workers Party win its February 2024 election, putting George Galloway – one of the country’s most ‘online’ politicians – in the driver’s seat (for a whole five months at least; he since lost his seat in the general election). Though most of what he spews on YouTube, TikTok and X is conspiratorial nonsense, Galloway’s firm stance on Gaza and pro-Palestinian slant previously made him popular with voters.
Galloway earns thousands of pounds a month from views and subscriptions, equalling the Labour Party in TikTok followers and tripling that of the Tories. His social media presence is impressive (though obviously, it isn’t everything), but it raises concerns about disinformation – which is especially jarring when it comes from a politician.
Fake news
It’s alarming that a phrase popularised by Trump has made its way into public vernacular, but here we are. While Trump didn’t coin the term, fake news and disinformation dominated the 2016 US presidential election. Though difficult to prove, this very phrase changed the way common people view politicians; we no longer trust them to be reputable sources of information. We no longer trust our governments. Some no longer trust journalists or news outlets, yet they trust their neighbour’s unverified Facebook posts. Where does that leave us?
There was once a time when people believed what they read in newspapers or on the internet. Before social media, having a platform was a rarity only afforded to a select few: politicians and celebrities, newscasters and reporters, scientists and academics. The news was newsworthy, and social circles were confined to physical locations.
Of course, fake news has always existed in some form; take UFOs, Bigfoot and Loch Ness Monster sightings. Some question whether astronauts really landed on the moon (they did), whether George Bush ‘did 9/11’ (he didn’t) and whether Barack Obama was born in the US (he was). Before social media, these ideas existed on the fringes of society; now, they’re widely debated and spun out of proportion. ‘Don’t believe everything you read on the internet’ was the unofficial catchphrase of the noughties, but on today’s web, fact can seem almost indiscernible from fiction.
Any decent journalist has a commitment to the public and to objective truth. This makes reporters’ jobs especially challenging when their subjects are spewing fake news – the very thing that Trump is seemingly so concerned about. How can journalists balance comprehensive coverage with social responsibility, especially when they’re meant to be nonpartisan?
In 2020, Trump lost the presidential election to Biden. Instead of respectfully accepting defeat (as Hillary Clinton did when she lost to Trump in 2016), he claimed he’d won (‘I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!’ he tweeted on 7 November 2020, after Biden’s victory had been called), that his loss was a hoax and the whole thing was rigged. This bit of blatant misinformation was so powerful that his followers believed it – and his most extreme supporters planned an uprising, which they carried out on 6 January 2021.
Social media had an immeasurable yet obvious impact on what’s come to be known as the January 6 insurrection – an event which saw an angry alt-right mob storm the US Capitol and break into the Congress building at the same time as Biden’s win was being formalised. At least five people died within 36 hours, and hundreds were injured.
This was the last straw for Twitter, which permanently banned Trump on 8 January 2021 – an unprecedented move for a social media platform. This wasn’t the first time the company intervened, flagging several of his tweets as containing ‘disputed or misleading information’ about the election, as described by The New York Times. Facebook also instituted a two-week block on Trump’s account between the insurrection and Biden’s inauguration and later extended this to a two-year suspension, which the company announced in June 2021.
While Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg initially expressed apathy towards Trump, he eventually labelled Trump’s actions a ‘severe violation’ of Facebook’s rules. The platform, which once granted politicians immunity from content moderation regulations, finally cracked down on the incitement of violence.
Although Elon Musk reinstated Trump’s account after purchasing Twitter in 2022, he also introduced Community Notes, taking a strength-in-numbers approach to content verification. Community Notes allow users to add context to tweets and vote on whether this information is relevant, with the aim of combating disinformation. When it comes to major elections,
this open-source strategy will hopefully take fake news out of the equation – or at least lessen its effect.
The death of the celebrity endorsement?
For decades, celebrities have endorsed politicians, subtly urging their fanbases to vote for one candidate over another. Once a coveted seal of approval, these endorsements are now worth little to politicians themselves, while silence is unacceptable to many fans – especially those politically engaged. Though celebrities are speaking up, taking to social media to express their views and use their enormous platforms for good, publicising their political stance will always solicit criticism from one party or another.
Up until 2018, one of the world’s biggest stars – Taylor Swift – was apolitical. Walking a fine line between pop and country music (which tends to attract a more conservative crowd), Swift hadn’t endorsed anyone in the 2016 election, though she did post a photo of herself at a polling station, causing speculation. In 2018, she finally spoke out against Trump and Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn, ‘pledging allegiance’ to Democratic politicians.
Swift has a stronghold on society; at the time of writing, she has 284 million followers on Instagram, 95.2 million on X and 32.8 million on TikTok. She’s a certified billionaire, holds the record for highest-grossing concert tour of any female artist and has been named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people three times and Person of the Year twice. Her cultural impact is undeniable – one that’s arguably been underutilised.
Certain celebrity fanbases have proven a political force to be reckoned with. K-pop fans pulled off a few pranks during the 2020 election, like spamming a police scanner app and booking tickets to a Trump rally, leaving the stadium embarrassingly empty. Plus, they put their money where their mouth is, raising over $1 million for Black Lives Matter.
Swift endorsed Biden in 2020 but hasn’t yet done the same for Harris. Journalists argue her support is invaluable, but the reasons behind her recent political abstinence remain unclear. Maybe it doesn’t matter, as Swift’s publicly voiced values align with the Democratic Party’s – and a Harris backing won’t change that.
Up for discussion
In today’s globalised era, social media encourages community-building and crowdsourcing. On the flip side, these platforms can also serve as ideological silos that thrive on algorithmic organisation. Despite stricter user guidelines and significant improvements in verification, disinformation still poses a threat.
Although the UK’s election season is over, the US is full steam ahead, and we have yet to fully realise just how impactful social media has been. What’s increasingly clear is its endless ability to spark political discussions, which isn’t an inherent drawback; if apps like TikTok and X can engage people – especially the youth – that’s surely a win for society overall.
This feature was first published in the Autumn 2024 issue of FEED.
