The U.S. military might be at worrying recruitment lows, but Joe Biden is busy recruiting a more important army: social media influencers. While China makes steady progress in convincing the world it should replace the United States as the most important world power, the Biden administration is reportedly considering a special briefing room just for social media influencers.
Axios, reporting the news, noted that, “The move aims to boost Biden’s standing among young voters who are crucial to Democrats’ success in elections — and to potentially counter former President Trump’s massive social media following, if he’s the GOP nominee in 2024.” The influencers will work for the White House and Biden’s digital strategy team to reach Americans who wisely ignore mainstream media or don’t follow official Democrat and White House accounts. Axios says the Biden administration’s notion of the importance of this social media campaign is obvious from the fact that its leader, Rob Flaherty, has been made an assistant to the president. That puts Flaherty on the same rank as the White House press secretary and communications director.
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“Hundreds of (unpaid and like-minded) content creators are working with Biden’s White House,” Axios wrote. “A dedicated White House briefing space for influencers to meet in person or by remote would be unprecedented — and a sign that the traditional Press Briefing Room no longer would be the administration’s only messaging center.”
On the one hand, the move might well be effective at reaching young people, who skew leftist anyway and who spend an appalling amount of time scrolling or posting on social media. Republicans might take a hint and try a little more social media messaging. On the other hand, it seems somewhat silly to be focused on giving an army of social media influencers their own briefing room and special White House privileges, with so many massive problems facing the United States. For instance, the Chinese yuan is replacing the U.S. dollar as global reserve currency. Not to mention, world leaders including France’s Emmanuel Macron are journeying to China to mark the rising importance of the genocidal Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and to bash the U.S. China has repeatedly threatened America and boasted a U.S.-led world order is changing. I recall how Americans argued about “misgendering” a mass shooter while North Korea unveiled new nuclear weapons.
You know who else has an army of social media influencers to manipulate young Americans? The CCP. Hugely popular app TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, in which the CCP owns a financial stake and board seat. TikTok was designed to be toxic, and it’s wildly different in its content and algorithm from its domestic Chinese counterpart. Furthermore, TikTok collects disturbingly detailed data on users, including faceprints, location data, file names, and user activity across multiple devices. Chinese employees at ByteDance can access TikTok data, and all Chinese companies are required to share data, including non-public data, with the CCP. TikTok trackers were recently found embedded on multiple state government websites. This is particularly dangerous because China practices “civil-military fusion,” where everything in the economic and tech spheres is accessible to the Chinese military. Yet the Biden White House specifically recruited TikTok influencers, according to Axios.
Maybe the Biden administration should stop pontificating about TikTok’s dangers and take some major action against it. Or maybe the Biden regime should worry about how this awful economy is hurting Americans. Not to mention, China has a ton of economic leverage over America. Chinese manufacturing includes making 80% of U.S. ports’ cargo cranes and processing about 90% of the rare earths so necessary to making electronics — the very electronics young Americans use for social media.
I almost wonder if this social media campaign is an easy way to expend effort while ignoring real problems. It’s interesting that former intelligence official and Trump advisor Anthony Shaffer recently said the CCP had bought off the White House and Joe Biden himself. Helping make reels for Instagram or ads for Twitter is a fun game to target young voters while China continues to build its new, anti-U.S. world order.
