TikTok and social media political influencers invited to the White House last week are surprised that President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress have approved the bill to ban the popular social media video app.
The House voted 352-65 on Wednesday in favor of the bill that would ban the app, with only 50 Democrats and 15 Republicans voting against it.
Keith Edwards, an influencer with more than 14,000 followers on TikTok, said it was not a good look for Biden, who continues to struggle with young voters.
“It won’t have any electoral impact because voters won’t consider things real until it actually happens,” he said in an interview with DailyMail.com
“But isn’t it great that we’re talking about this now that Joe Biden has finally changed the atmosphere for him in a positive direction.”
Social media influencer Keith Edwards told the Daily Mail that Biden and the Democrats were sending the wrong message to young people
Gen Z activist and TikToker Johnny Palmadessa said he relied on the platform to communicate with young people
Biden’s outreach to more than 70 different social media influencers for last week’s State of the Union address sent the message to content creators that he and his campaign were serious about courting young people on TikTok and other social media platforms .
Edwards said he wasn’t concerned about losing the TikTok platform entirely, but cautioned political content creators against spreading their influence across multiple different platforms.
‘TikTok is not going away. Someone will buy it, but creators need to spread their bets because between this, Meta’s upcoming shadow ban on political content, and Elon Musk destroying Twitter… you can’t depend on one platform anymore,” he said.
Edwards has more than 90,000 followers on Meta’s Threads platform and 136,000 followers on X.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Biden continued to support the bill that would ban the app and that he would sign it if it reached his desk.
“We hope that the Senate will take action and address this very quickly,” Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One.
Gen Z activist Johnny Palmadessa, who has 26,000 followers on TikTok, also expressed surprise after Democrats in the House of Representatives joined Republicans in passing the bill that would force China-based TikTok company ByteDance to sell or banned in the United States.
“TikTok connects young Americans to opportunities — and as a Gen-Z TikToker, I find myself relying on the platform for communication,” he told the Daily Mail. “This just underscores Congress’ indifference in making decisions they already don’t understand.”
Palmadessa was also at the White House event last week and has over 100,000 followers on Threads and 16,000 followers on Instagram.
“Rather than trying to ban a platform that uplifts young Americans, Congress should focus on pursuing an agenda that also supports young people,” he said.
News of the House of Representatives’ passage of the TikTok bill sparked protests against the popular video app from political content creators.
TikTok creators expressed their anger at Democrats and Biden for supporting the bill that would ban the app
“I think this legislation and others like it – especially around AI, which is also on the rise – is where leftists and conservatives will find common ground,” V. Spehar, who posts on the handle @underthedesknews, told DailyMail. com.
Spehar posted a protest video in his bill shortly after the House passed the bill to address TikTok on a bipartisan vote of 352-65.
Spehar pointed out that Republicans like Reps. Dan Bishop (R-NC) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) had the right concerns about the legislation and ridiculed Rep. Nancy Pelosi for her comment that TikTok looked like a “Tic-Tac-Teen.” A winner.’
“I think Nancy Pelosi has failed in her attempt to convince voters that she gets it ‘as a grandmother,’” Spehar said.
TikTok user @probably_n0t_chris spoke out about Biden’s hypocrisy in a video
TikTok user @probably_n0t_chris ventilated in a video on TikTok, calling out Biden’s hypocrisy for using TikTok influencers to promote his State of the Union address before approving a ban on the app less than 24 hours later.
“If this isn’t proof that these politicians will use you and cast you aside once they get what they want? I don’t know what’s wrong?’ he said. “To the seventy influencers who came along: If you feel half as stupid as you should, you will remember this decision for the rest of your damn life. What did you expect? This man has set you up to promote your own unemployment. I hope you feel stupid, this is Joe Biden we’re talking about.”
The Biden campaign created a TikTok account in February to connect with young people and share exclusive videos of the president.
President Biden greets digital content creators at the White House
TikTok creators march from the US Capitol to the White House and demand President Biden keep TikTok at a rally in Washington DC, US.
TikTok user Gabrielle Judge revealed in a TikTok video that she was invited by the White House to attend the State of the Union address, but was “on the fence” about the idea because her content wasn’t necessarily political.
She indicated she was rebuffed after she saw Biden say he would sign the bill banning TikTok if Congress put it on his desk.
“After Biden recently used TikTok to campaign for certain things, I felt like you’re full of c*** anyway,” she says said in a video.
Judge revealed that the agency recruiting influencers for the State of the Union address sent her a draft letter and approved talking points for posts and videos about the event an hour before the event took place.
Judge said she has about 400,000 followers across platforms.
“Considering how many followers I have, I was invited to this to boost Joe Biden and his voice,” she said.
Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) blasted Biden on social media after the White House reiterated the president’s support for the bill.
“Maybe the president can set a good example and cancel his TikTok account,” he says wrote on X.