in American elections in the medium term, a red wave was expected, a crushing victory for the Republicans over the Democrats. The representations won, but there was no tsunami, no insurmountable gap between the seats. Of course, the Democrats still have a problem, most notably the inability to renew themselves, and that could become a major problem in 2024 and Trump’s re-nomination.

But another point is interesting, and it concerns not only the United States. Never, like in 2022, resorted to using Tik Tok for campaigns.. At the end of October, US President Joe Biden spent more than an hour at the White House in the company of the TikToker group; eight stars, with over 67 million subscribers, were flown to Washington. in hopes of persuading their communities to vote Democratic in the November 8 elections.. “We’re seeing more and more politicians and establishments using this new medium, it’s an incredibly effective way to reach out to young people,” Aidan Cohn-Murphy, founder of Gen Z for Change, said at the conference. Washington Post. “We are seeing many campaigns and party organizations starting to use tactics promoted by digital communicators.”

Something similar happened in Italy in September during the parliamentary elections.. Georgia Meloni and her team have made the most of the thousands of opportunities that Tik Tok has to offer, from short and effective conversations to creating memes and trends. And it wasn’t just social campaigns organized by individual parties: the Election 2022 filter, created by Davide Fumarola, a Milan-based designer specializing in branding and visual identity, has gained over 70 million views and appeared in 65,000 posts; by answering yes or no to the main questions present in all party election programs (nuclear power, fixed tax, civil rights and basic income), the filter indicated the coalition or group that most closely matched the user’s political preferences. In the UK, Germany and France, things are not so different; even the likes of Jean-Luc Melancho, the leader of the French left, now in his seventies, is addressing and debating issues such as euthanasia, xenophobia and immigration on Tik Tok.

Measuring the real impact of Tik Tok on politics is still difficult, but according to Madeleine V. Toomey, founder of digital consulting Rufus and Mane (as well as co-hosting Biden’s meeting with content creators) “iSocial media has never before seen influence and power”; and using it, regardless of the result, is undoubtedly a winning strategy. According to research conducted Pew Research Center, the percentage of people who get their news via TikTok has tripled in the past two years, and more than 26% of adults under 30 regularly search for news on the social network. Same Washington PostThe American newspaper, famous for being the first to come out (and busted on TikTok), analyzes a new way of communication and equally important questions: who moderates and what are the rules? How does censorship work? Social media has very strict rules when it comes to controversial words, images of violence or nudity; and it usually happens with direct removal of content. But what happens when it’s precisely controversial words like “Capitol Hill” for the Trump case; and “anti-Semitism” for the Kanye West case and related candidacy to be the subject of user research?