CDA party leader Henri Bontenbal opened a Tiktok account at the end of August with a quote from one in the Bio Lord of the Rings-Filming: “There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And It’s Worth Fighting for. ” In the second film of that trilogy, the serviceable Hobbit Samwise told his friend and master Frodo that – even in times when evil seems to get the upper hand – it is still stuck to fight for something.
Bontenbal used his first video on the social media platform to highlight the CDA election program in approximately one minute. With almost a thousand followers, he is now a small player: D66 party leader Rob Jetten now has more than 14,000 followers on Tiktok.
Last October, Jetten-together with the separate D66 account-returned to Tiktok, after the party had left the platform in the run-up to the 2023 elections because of principle objections. Also parties such as Volt, VVD, Party for the Animals and the ChristenUnie Meden Tiktok. Their biggest complaint was how the platform handles personal data: it collects much more information from users than other social media.
Moreover, the Chinese government could possibly have access to data from European accounts. The cabinet therefore set a limit: because of the spy risk, civil servants were no longer allowed to install Tiktok on their work telephones.
Nevertheless, this year Tiktok is playing a role in the election campaign. In fact, with the exception of the ChristenUnie, the aforementioned parties are all on the platform.
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Bubble
Why that return? The statement that Jetten gave can apply to all parties: “It is important that you can see all ideas and perspectives, and not the same bubble with the same information all day. That is why we are […] Back on Tiktok, to tell our story and to pick up in your input. ”
Although almost all parties on TIKTOK proclaim their message to appeal to voters, the tone of their videos varies. From the detailed campaign points of the CDA, to the personal videos of BBB leader Caroline van der Plas, on a party account that now has nearly 115,000 followers. On that BBB account, a casual Van der Plas appears in one of the films behind a piano, above which a plate with ‘Pauw and De Wit’ hangs. While she works some false notes, she announces that she can be seen live that evening, in her first election debate with Rob Jetten about the living crisis. After a few impure chords, she raises her thumbs and says with a smile: “Talentje.”
Already in 2021 BBB entered the Tiktok site, as well as Early Adopter Thierry Baudet of FVD, who was one of the first to embrace the platform and now has a lead over other parties, with more than 243,000 followers.
GroenLinks-PvdA (the former account of GroenLinks, which by the way already reported to Tiktok in 2020) is also a lover of Memes and regularly shares funny films about political positions. In a video of GL-PvdA that has been viewed 378,000 times, the outgoing cabinet is waved goodbye to the song ‘Goodbye, goodbye’ by the folk singer Stella Bos. Names are missing or were spelled incorrectly. For example, the head of Dilan Yesilgöz simply says ‘VVD Madam’ with glitter -covered heads. Anyone who is careful also sees that the head at ‘Dirk Schoof’ [sic] That is from actor Billy Bob Thornton. The video ends with the text, in glittering pink letters: “Thank you for nothing!”
Parties must
The return to Tiktok can also be explained differently: parties simply have to. From October, a ban on political advertisements applies in the European Union via Meta and Google. This year, campaigns are therefore partly running on their own, ‘unpaid visibility’ – and those who do not develop a smart and timely strategy, lack range. This makes Tiktok, where young people are massively, more important than ever.
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Last year, for example, 44 percent of users in the Netherlands were between 12 and 27 years old, while 34 percent fell 28 to 43 in the age category. According to Tiktok itself, the app reached an average of 6.7 million people in the first half of this year in the Netherlands – more than a quarter of the population. At the same time, the number of people over forty on the platform is also increasing.
“The parties really miss something if they are missing,” says Sanne Kuikemeier, professor of digital media and society at Wageningen University & Research. She investigates the social media use of political parties and calls Tiktok of importance from a democratic point of view: “There are the young voters and they must be able to make an informed choice.”
The extent to which young people gain their information about politics via social media is still being investigated by Kruikemeier. She does state that young people gather almost all their news via social media, probably also their information about politics.
Kruikemeier also sees that a strong online presence of a party or party leader can have influence: “That can give the last push. And especially voters with less political knowledge are influenced via social media.”
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