Problem Or Opportunity?
The number and variety of technology platforms available to everyone these days presents enormous opportunities and challenges. Some see the platforms as opportunities to talk about products and services while others see them as a way to distort reality.
In all cases, outcomes are identified, platforms are selected, messages are created and then distributed based on some demographic analytics (and hope the messages go viral). In fact, without the platforms, most companies, career professionals and politicians would find it impossible to create, buy, sell or manage the content they believe will help them succeed.
The Platforms
We’re all familiar with “the socials.” According to Tamilore Oladipo (2024), Josh Howarth (2024) and Rachel Handley (2024), they include Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Truth Social, YouTube, Pinterest, WeChat, Qzone, Stack Exchange, Tieba, Telegram, Pinterest, Baidu, Facebook Messenger, LinkedIn, Reddit, Douyin, Discord, QQ, Tumblr, Imo, Kuaishou, Line, Picsart, Twitch, Bilibili, Vimeo, Weibo, VK, Rumble, Triller, Line, Xiaohongshu (RED), Threads, ShareChat, Threads, Josh, Kuasishou, Spotify, Viber, Quoram, Qzone, Clubhouse, Truth Social, Mastodon, Bluesky, Sina Weibo, among others that have varying numbers of monthly active users (MAUs) with various purposes, like advertising, sharing, messaging and career management. In some cases, all of the purposes are political: we’re seeing changes in platform popularity that in an election year are especially impactful.
Platforms, Politics, Memes And Influencers
Most political candidates have mastered some of the social platforms, but there are clear – and shifting – strategies at work. For example, Sareen Habeshian (2024) describes how the Harris campaign is leveraging social media:
“The ‘mobilization team,’ made up of the generation that encompasses 12-27 year olds, is leveraging talked about moments from the campaign trail and reacting with humor while capitalizing on viral TikTok trends to force a contrast between Harris and former President Trump.”
Much more importantly, the numbers are compelling:
“The Harris TikTok account gained 2 million followers in the first 24 hours since she became the presidential nominee and now has over 4.8 million … the first six TikTok videos had more than 113 million views combined as of (August 2024) … the Harris account … has grown its following from 440K followers to over 3.9 million followers … (and) its TikTok videos had, as of Aug. 9, accumulated more than 462 million views since launch.”
Twitch is one of the platforms that the Trump campaign has used to communicate with a different group of voters. After the platform reinstated Trump (following his ban from the platform after the attack on the United States capital), it reinstated him in January of 2023. Since then, Trump has used his own Twitch channel to stream messages to voters. He’s also returned to X and Meta, also after he was banned. (His own Truth Social platform is where he has committed to make major announcements, that Truth Social would remain his “first channel” for breaking news.) Trump only recently joined TikTok in June of 2024 and almost immediately attracted 3 million followers.
As Eleanor Hawkins (2024) explains, “memes” have become a major weapon within the socials:
“Memes – viral snippets of a cultural moment – find a way to transcend constituencies, shape narratives and forge connection … since launching her presidential bid last month, Vice President Kamala Harris has been the benefactor of “brat summer,” “femininomenon,” celebrity content and coconut memes.
“Donald Trump supporters, meanwhile, have circulated the fist-pump image following July’s assassination attempt and embraced Hulk Hogan’s viral ‘Trumpmania’ moment from the RNC.”
More recently, we’ve seen “influencers” join the social fray. Sometimes these influencers are paid by political action committees (PACs); sometimes even foreign governments participate in the influence game.
All of this is happening as artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a new social role as it so easily provides light and deep fakes and other forms of disinformation.
What About Regulation?
Should political candidates be allowed to just make things up and post them across the social platforms? As reported here, Taylor Swift clearly doesn’t believe so. As you recall, she was the victim of a false post that suggested she was supporting former president Trump, which was, according to her, untrue. As reported by Forbes staff Siladitya Ray, it got worse:
“Trump later shared a video clip of a woman talking about ‘Swifties … waking up’ following the terror plot that led to the cancellation of her concerts in Austria.
“The former president shared posts on Truth Social and X over the weekend suggesting Harris was a communist, including the front page of the New York Post deriding the vice president’s economic platform as ‘Kamunism.’
“Trump also shared an AI-generated image on X depicting the vice president addressing a crowd in Chicago – the site of the Democratic National Convention –with the hammer and sickle symbol appearing in the backdrop.”
Should all — or any — of this be regulated? Should Section 230 of the Communications Act be re-visited once again? We know, for example, that the majority of GenZ gets its “news” from social media, a trend we expect to continue – if not expand – with GenA. We also know that true or false “news” goes viral at the drop of a conspiratorial hat. So what should we do? Nothing? Something?
Arguments for and against some form of regulation of social media have been raging for years. Some believe that companies should self-regulate. Others believe the government should issue some guidance, while others believe the government should police content for its accuracy with tools like real-time true/false labeling. Some American states have already begun the regulatory mission. But enforcement remains inconsistent, expensive and often irrelevant to public opinion. Is all this just a natural technology extension of the First Amendment, which protects all flavors of free speech? Or is it a failure to respond to behavior that has profound effects on us all?
