TikTok Woos Republicans With Debate Commercials

The video site took out ads touting social media's benefits.

Over the past several years, calls to restrict or outright ban TikTok have become increasingly popular among politicians. Attacks on the Chinese-owned app have primarily focused on its alleged threat to national security, but politicians and activists have also sought to restrict access to the platform by arguing it endangers children's mental health.

Despite TikTok's harshest critics coming from both sides of the aisle, Republican states have been much more likely to actually engage in direct action against the app. So far, Montana has attempted to ban the app completely, while more than 30 states—most of which are Republican-led—have banned the app on devices owned by government employees.

Republicans are also more likely to support penalties against TikTok. According to a recent Reuters survey, 58 percent of Republicans support banning the app, while only 47 percent of Democrats agree. And of the eight Republican presidential candidates who participated in Wednesday's debate, at least six have voiced support for a national ban or have banned it somewhat in their own state. 

That's why it may have come as a surprise for many viewers of this week's GOP debate to see several ads for the app playing during commercial breaks. 

The ads, which focused on individual users, were clearly tailored to pluck on Republican heartstrings. For example, in one ad, an elderly Navy veteran talks about using the app to crowdfund for a new mobility scooter. In another, folksy banjo music plays over footage of the four-wheeler-riding owner of a soap-making small business discussing how TikTok expanded her reach.

The ads are part of a larger campaign called TikTok Sparks Good, which includes ads highlighting a range of family-friendly accounts—from an Australian pottery artist to a teacher using the platform to teach toddlers how to read. 

While it's unclear whether the ad campaign will help rehabilitate the app's image among Republicans, it highlights a simple truth about social media that many of its detractors ignore. Without social media, the numerous small businesses featured in TikTok Sparks Good ads really wouldn't have been able to expand their product's reach to an international audience. Without social media, a military veteran wouldn't have had adoring fans who jumped to buy him—and now more veterans—new mobility aid.

Despite claims that social media apps are essentially a force for evil—supposedly drawing teenagers into a spiral of depression and spreading nasty "misinformation"—they have clear upsides. Apps like TikTok can connect people in ways that would never have been possible without social media.

Comments

[Stuck in California]

Geez fuck, young Emma sucks ticktock dick here. Without ticktock veterans would have no way to get around!

I'm guessing Koch has some financial interests here. Or maybe he's just helping pay Xi back for some favor or other. Because the ads are pure propaganda and a hint of cynicism, rather than blind acceptance, might be more appropriate for a journalist covering the whole affair.

[Overt]

"Without social media, the numerous small businesses featured in TikTok Sparks Good ads really wouldn't have been able to expand their product's reach to an international audience."

It's always nice to pop into Reason for a couple hours to see the Editors still asleep at the wheel.

Really, Ms Camp? Without TikTok, NONE of these small businesses would have been able to expand? Really? Is Facebook, or Google, or Etcy, or Mytubr or ShillFly or any of the other companies not capable of assisting these small businesses?

Again, this is the sort of thing an editor would read and say, "Let's expand on this a bit, because what you are saying isn't accurate in the least and makes you look foolish." But instead of having a decent editor who cares about logic and persuasiveness, we have Editors that want to spend donor money in the most ceremonially convenient way possible.

[Stuck in California]

Do editors actually edit, here? It really seems like the writers just bank a shitload of stories to be meted out, and they are entirely responsible for them except for following the marching orders of what message to promote.

[Overt]

They don't even mete out the stories- at least they haven't when I was paying attention...I've been busy lately. But every monday, you'd get one or two articles and then tuesday one or two, and by thursday you get half a dozen in one big clump. On the weekends usually one or two articles.

So they can't even run "Front of House" bullshit like scheduling articles competently. That's on top of their incompetence around editing for accuracy- just terrible examples of articles written with typos and bad links. And on top of that, there is no attention to intellectual rigor. I frequently follow "evidence" links in Reason articles that lead to some bland retelling of the point, instead of actually proving the claim that had the link. Statements like the above are transparently amateur- like 6th-grade-writing bad.

KMH and her ilk are just cashing in paychecks with no accountability at all. They have ZERO interest in the quality of the journalism they put out. I can guarantee you that any work they have done to improve traffic to this site (if its traffic isn't sinking) has been 100% technological- like banning comments from the crawler bots so that Facebook/google won't censor them. They are doing nothing to present a decent libertarian product.

And by the way, I tend to agree with Ms Camp that the US ought to leave TikTok alone. But that is yet another reason why I am so angered by these terrible articles. Ms Camp's article is sloppy and low effort. It is about 2 revisions away from being a credible blog post. I don't think Ms Camp could do less to support this ideology if she posted videos of KMH beating puppies to death with a baseball bat.

[JesseAz]

Journolist can only generate so many narratives to repeat in a given week. What else is there to write?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

has been 100% technological- like banning comments from the crawler bots so that Facebook/google won’t censor them.

Yeeuuup.

[Stuck in California]

I'm not arguing whether tick tock should be banned. I don't think it should and, frankly, I can hardly be troubled to care.

For me, also, it's the quality of Camp's "journalism" here. And everyone else's. The logic behind some of the opinions is akin to that of a high school essay, in others the lack of self-awareness is almost cringeworthy.

I'll point to the article that makes me no longer give Camp any breaks, where she reported people worried that an increase in high schoolers calling themselves conservative meant a massive rise in racists and violent extremists. Instead of saying "That assertion is ridiculous" she explained that it was OK, because they weren't actually conservative, so they weren't going to become violent racist extremists.

Any publication where an editor actually edits would never let that pass. At least not back in the days when I worked for a publisher. That was a quarter century ago, times have changed.

As for removing links, I don't think they're even any good at that. Roughly half of my comments section is grey bars this year, and for months that has been splt about 50/50 between the shopright bots and the trolls like SPB or squirrely or chemicaljeff, whom I blocked within minutes of making my account.

I'm fine with just blocking people, though. It's the Teen Reason progressive libertarianism that's irking. I read maybe 5 articles a week, now, and half the ones I open are as bad as the one above. When I started reading here a few years back it was far more. Either this place is in decline, or I'm just a grouchier old fucker than I was in the 20teens. Maybe both.

[Overt]

My point about comments was just that I think KMW, et al, are sitting on their laurels and not editing because they have boosted pageviews through technological changes, not by actually producing a quality product. I will admit up front that I don't KNOW if that is true. But the editing has dropped off a cliff over the past 4 years, and the only reason I can think of why KMW isn't canned is that she is snowing over the Board with appeals to increased viewers- because they made some changes to the site that improved their SEO and social media reach.

I don't agree with people who say this is all what the Kochs want. It really isn't. I've played in that crowd for awhile, and the simple fact is that the Koch donations are largely on autopilot, and they are a pittance compared to what the Kochs were dumping into the GOP. They wrote off Reason as anything but a...sentimental token for old times years ago.

No, the people donating to Reason are either the left-coast, blue bubble libertarians, or people who do it because they think it is the only libertarian cause in town. And KMW has positioned herself nicely to cash that paycheck every year, with the mockable, risible garbage that Reason has been pumping out.

Reason has become a Huckster magazine- A site not substantially different from the many "Tea Party Patriots" groups that sprung up circa 2016 to milk conservatives of their treasure while doing nothing for the movement.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

It would be nice to at least see a more coherent direction at reason. For instance:

Monday: [Foreign Banana Republic X] arrests opposition leader in dangerous political move to prevent him from running.

Tuesday: Trump indicted on 11,247 charges.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Oceania is free, wrong-thinker!

[Overt]

I will disagree here. I think it would be GREAT to see Reasonistas debating each other, disagreeing and explaining why *their* reading of the tealeaves is so good.

For what it is worth, it is what made me a fan of NRO's Corner back in the mid 2000s. They actually debated shit, and had different opinions. But by the time Romney was running, they had become a monolith of people who sold out intellectual discourse for homogeneous "Here's why we're all right" nonsense. I think it started when they fired Derbyshire.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I will disagree here. I think it would be GREAT to see Reasonistas debating each other, disagreeing and explaining why *their* reading of the tealeaves is so good.

I'm not convinced they're aware of any disagreements. It's one thing to disagree, it's another thing to do intellectual broken field running and not realize you're doing it.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Mug shot of Donald Trump shows scowling former president during speedy booking at Atlanta jail

LOL.

Saving Democracy!

[Elmer Fudd the CHUD 2: Steampunk Boogaloo]

Little Emma IS foolish. Just another leftist kid fresh out of Marxist U.

[Dillinger]

hey I'm late today I see 114 new pieces but no titles say Robert L. Peters

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

but politicians and activists have also sought to restrict access to the platform by arguing it endangers children's mental health.

We talking about Chinese politicians or American ones?

[AT]

The ads are part of a larger campaign called TikTok Sparks Good

Probably the same thing whispered to Faust.

[Dan S.]

more than 30 states—most of which are Republican-led—have banned the app on devices owned by government employees.

Shouldn't that say "devices owned by the state government"? Or at least "devices used on the job by government employees" rather than simply any devices they own? I certainly hope so.

[Elmer Fudd the CHUD 2: Steampunk Boogaloo]

Perhaps she should have gotten some other work experience to enhance her communications skills prior to this job. Like a place where she could learn to effectively ask customers if they “want fries with that”.

[Libertariantranslator]

The bloodiest wars are fought between people who believe almost exactly the same thing. Brainwashed Republican fanatical prohibitionists are the same as brainwashed Chicom prohibitionist dictators down to three dismal places. So of course they're at each other's throats. May the lot of them go the way of the Calico Cat and the Gingham Dog!

[Elmer Fudd the CHUD 2: Steampunk Boogaloo]

You’re a goddamned idiot.