Exclusive
Status: 08/29/2022 1:28 p.m
Millions of people use TikTok in Germany. Politics is also taking place more and more on the platform. According to research by funk format DIE DA OBEN! One party in particular knows how to use this: the AfD.
The SPD at the Tornado Challenge, the FDP politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann on the scooter, Markus Söder as a sex symbol. In the fight for votes, the parties don’t seem too bad about each other. Especially not when it comes to a rare favour: that of young voters.
The video platform TikTok has experienced a rapid rise. Young people in particular use the social network of the Chinese company ByteDance, many of them on a daily basis. The content mostly consists of several-second videos with dancing teens, fun challenges, shallow entertainment. In the recent past, however, one aspect in particular has gained in importance: the formation of political opinions.
On TikTok, you mainly get content from people you haven’t followed yet, on the so-called For You Page. An advantage if you want to spread your political messages. Almost all parties are now represented with their own accounts on TikTok. Many of them, however, only with moderate success.
“Wanted and not able”
It fails primarily because of authenticity, says communications consultant Martin Fuchs. The contents of the parties are “of course wanted and not able”. It is an attempt by people far from the target group to create TikTok-related content. That doesn’t seem “often really authentic, not really cool, not really relevant to the target group,” says Fuchs.
One party is an exception: the AfD. The right-wing populists have understood how to use the platform for themselves. On TikTok, she takes a different path in many ways – and is extremely successful with it. That has a research of the funk format DIE DA OBEN! result.
And this despite the fact that the AfD itself no longer has an official party account on TikTok. In May 2022, TikTok deleted the channel – to the complete incomprehension of the then Vice Federal Spokeswoman Beatrix von Storch. The deletion took place “without reason or reason and without justification,” she said in a press release. To date, the account is no longer accessible.
AfD shows presence on TikTok
Nevertheless, the AfD continues to distribute its content on TikTok – via a large number of accounts. These do not come from the party as a whole, but for example from the AfD parliamentary group, from the parliamentary groups in the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Berlin House of Representatives – or from members of parliament themselves. The party shows its presence: In the Bundestag no party uses TikTok more intensively than they do AfD. More than a third of the party’s 80 members of the Bundestag have their own accounts. In comparison: in the SPD, not even one in ten of the 206 members of parliament uses the platform.
The AfD is particularly successful on TikTok in one way: by not currying favor. On the contrary: She doesn’t rely on current trends, but instead shares excerpts from speeches or short speeches in short videos. In doing so, the party mainly uses content that it has previously used on other social networks in a kind of third-party exploitation. “This has the great advantage that you can produce a lot of content with relatively few resources and play it out quickly on TikTok,” says communications consultant Martin Fuchs.
Lack of transparency
The number of views of the AfD video excerpts regularly goes into the millions. This puts the party well ahead of its political peers online. But there is a lack of transparency. It is often not clear to users that the accounts are AfD accounts. A reference to party and function is increasingly missing within the channel profiles. For example, with the member of the Bundestag Roger Beckamp, about whom you can only get further information via the link to an external site. When asked, Beckamp confirmed that this account was his account.
The Saxony-Anhalt member of the state parliament, Ulrich Siegmund, also lacks references to his party background in his biography. Not even his name can be found there, the account is called “@mutzurwahrheit90”. When asked, Siegmund also confirmed the authenticity of his account. Explosive: With almost 225,000 followers and more than two million likes for his videos, he is one of the most successful German politicians on TikTok.
Effect with third party accounts
AfD content on TikTok also achieves a high reach without the involvement of members of parliament. The party benefits from a large number of unofficial accounts, so-called third-party accounts. Such accounts reflect content with an AfD context, including official party video content. However, the AfD denies a direct reference. There is no exchange with third-party accounts, nor is there contact with such, the AfD press office said on request.
Nevertheless, such accounts ensure reputation on the platform, analyzes Martin Fuchs. “A very clear advantage of these third-party accounts is that they create a completely different perception,” says Fuchs. “They don’t appear with an official AfD logo, and maybe not with the AfD’s bad image either.”
The pitfall of such third-party accounts: Some of these accounts do not shy away from misinformation and conspiracy stories. TikTok remains vague on how to deal with it. “Remove misinformation that could cause significant harm to individuals, our community, or the public,” the community guidelines say. The corresponding videos can still be accessed on the platform.
In contrast to the official AfD account. TikTok removed this from the platform. When asked, TikTok said it was “consistently working to combat hateful behavior by removing accounts and content that violates our Community Guidelines.”
The AfD is defending itself against the blocking of its official party account by TikTok. Legal action had been taken against the deletion of the account, the party said in response to THE DA OOB! request. Since this is an ongoing process, no further information can be given as to the reasons for the deletion.