Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has joined TikTok, just a little over a year after his government banned the social media app from federal government devices.
Amid questions about his age and mental state, the 81-year-old announced his arrival on TikTok, primarily used by young people sharing short videos set to music, with a clip captioned: “lol hey guys.”
His presence on the app is clearly not intended to raise the bar of political discussion, but rather to boost Biden’s popularity among the young. It comes despite official fears that the Chinese government could use TikTok to access U.S. user data—fears which prompted a 2022 government ban on federal government-issued devices using the app.
At the time of the ban, Republican lawmaker Josh Hawley bashed TikTok as a “Trojan horse for the Chinese Communist party.” Democratic Senator Mark Warner added that action was needed “to keep our government technology out of the CCP’s [Chinese Communist Party’s] reach.”
Biden’s decision to park these concerns in order to boost his electoral chances came just a week after the European Parliament also ignored its own bans in order to join TikTok. A Czech MEP described the move as both “bizarre and hypocritical.”
U.S. officials have been just as critical of the president’s backtrack, with Democratic Senator Mark Warner citing fears over the security implications. He said:
I think that we still need to find a way to follow India, which has prohibited TikTok. I’m a little worried about a mixed message.
As if to add confusion to the situation, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said that despite Biden’s presence on the app, “it’s not approved for use on government devices and that remains the case today.”
