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      US cites AI deepfakes as reason to keep Biden recording with Robert Hur secret

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      The US Department of Justice is making a novel legal argument to keep a recording of an interview with Joe Biden from becoming public. In a filing late last week, the bureau cited the risk of AI-generated deepfakes as one of the reasons it refuses to release audio of the president’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur. The conversation about Biden’s handling of classified documents is a source of heated political contention, with Republicans pushing for release of the recordings and the White House moving to block them.The justice department’s filing, which it released late on Friday night, argues that the recording should not be released on a variety of grounds including privacy interests and executive privilege. One section of the filing, however, is specifically dedicated to the threat of deepfakes and disinformation, stating that there is substantial risk people could maliciously manipulate the audio if it were to be made public.“The passage of time and advancements in audio, artificial intelligence, and ‘deep fake’ technologies only amplify concerns about malicious manipulation of audio files,” the justice department stated. “If the audio recording is released here, it is easy to foresee that it could be improperly altered, and that the altered file could be passed off as an authentic recording and widely distributed.”The filing presents a novel argument about the threat of AI-generated disinformation from the release of government materials, potentially setting up future legal battles over the balance between transparency and preventing the spread of misinformation.“A malicious actor could slow down the speed of the recording or insert words that President Biden did not say or delete words that he did say,” the filing argues. “That problem is exacerbated by the fact that there is now widely available technology that can be used to create entirely different audio ‘deepfakes’ based on a recording.”Biden’s interview with Hur reignited a longstanding conservative campaign of questioning Biden’s mental faculties and drawing attention to his age, which critics claim make him unfit to be president. While Hur’s report into classified documents found at Biden’s private residence did not result in charges against him, the special counsel’s description of him as an “elderly man with poor memory” became ammunition for Republicans and prompted Biden to defend his mental fitness.Although transcripts of Hur’s interview with Biden are public, conservative groups and House Republicans have taken legal action, filed Freedom of Information Act requests and demanded the release of recorded audio from the conversation as he campaigns against Donald Trump. Biden has asserted executive privilege to prevent the release of the audio, while the latest justice department filing pushes back against many of the conservative claims about the recording.The justice department’s filing argues that releasing the recording would create increased public awareness that audio of the interview is circulating, making it more believable when people encounter doctored versions of it.A number of politicians have become the target of deepfakes created in attempts to swing political opinion, including Biden. A robocall earlier this year that mimicked Biden’s voice and told people not to vote in New Hampshire’s Democratic primary was sent to thousands of people. The political consultant allegedly behind the disinformation campaign is now facing criminal charges and a potential $6m fine. More

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      Trump joins TikTok despite seeking to ban app as president

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      Former president Donald Trump has joined social media platform TikTok and made his first post late Saturday night, a video featuring the Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO, Dana White, introducing Trump on the social media platform.The move came despite that fact that as president Trump pushed to ban TikTok by executive order due to the app’s parent company being based in China. Trump said in March 2024 that he believed the app was a national security threat, but later reversed on supporting a ban.The 13-second video was taken as Trump attended a UFC event on Saturday evening in Newark, New Jersey. In the video Trump says it is an “honor” to have joined the app as a Kid Rock song played in the background.“The campaign is playing on all fields,” an adviser to Trump’s campaign told Politico. “Being able to do outreach on multiple platforms and outlets is important and this is just one of many ways we’re going to reach out to voters. TikTok skews towards a younger audience.”Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr joined the app last week, where he posted videos from the Manhattan courthouse where Trump was convicted on Thursday on all 34 counts for falsifying business records.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJoe Biden signed legislation into law in April 2024 that will ban the social media app from the US, giving TikTok’s parent company ByteDance 270 days to sell the app over concerns the app poses a national security risk. TikTok has sued to block the ban with oral arguments in the case scheduled for September. Biden’s campaign has continued using the app despite the legislation. More

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      Trump reportedly considers White House advisory role for Elon Musk

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      Donald Trump has floated a possible advisory role for the tech billionaire Elon Musk if he were to retake the White House next year, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.The two men, who once had a tense relationship, have had several phone calls a month since March as Trump looks to court powerful donors and Musk seeks an outlet for his policy ideas, the newspaper said, citing several anonymous sources familiar with their conversations.Musk and Trump connected in March at the estate of billionaire Nelson Peltz. Since then, the two have discussed various policy issues, including immigration, which Musk has become vocal about in recent months.“America will fall if it tries to absorb the world,” Musk tweeted in March.Musk has said he will not donate to either presidential campaign this election, but has reportedly told Trump he plans to host gatherings to dissuade wealthy and powerful allies from supporting Joe Biden in November.It has only been just a few years since Musk and Trump were exchanging insults. At a rally in 2022, Trump called Musk “another bullshit artist”. Meanwhile, Musk tweeted that Trump should “hang up his hat and sail into the sunset”.Musk briefly served on Trump’s White House business advisory group early during his presidency, but Musk dropped out after Trump pulled the US out of the Paris climate accord in 2017.Now, relations appeared to have softened. When Musk acquired Twitter, renaming it X, in 2022, he reinstated Trump’s account. Musk has since asked Trump to be more active on X, according to the Journal, though Trump has largely been loyal to his Truth Social platform.In March, after meeting Musk at Peltz’s estate, Trump told CNBC: “I’ve been friendly with him over the years. I helped him when I was president. I helped him. I’ve liked him.”As the owner of Tesla and SpaceX, Musk has benefited from federal government policies and contracts over the last several years, including rocket-service contracts and tax credits for electric vehicles.Trump in March said he and Musk “obviously have opposing views on a minor subject called electric cars”, with Trump opposing ramping up electric vehicle production and supporting tariffs against foreign EV manufacturing.Peltz, an investor, has been a key connector between Trump and Musk. Peltz and Musk have told Trump that they are working on a large data-driven project designed to ensure votes are fairly counted, though details on the project remain opaque. More

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      The US attempt to ban TikTok is an attack on ideas and hope | Dominic Andre

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      I’m a TikTok creator. I’ve used TikTok to build a multimillion dollar business, focused on sharing interesting things I’ve learned in life and throughout my years in college. TikTok allowed me to create a community and help further my goal of educating the public. I always feared that one day, it would be threatened. And now, it’s happening.Why does the US government want to ban TikTok? The reasons given include TikTok’s foreign ownership and its “addictive” nature, but I suspect that part of the reason is that the app primarily appeals to younger generations who often hold political and moral views that differ significantly from those of older generations, including many of today’s politicians.The platform has become a powerful tool for grassroots movements challenging established elites and has amplified voices advocating against capitalism and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and women’s rights. Moreover, for the first time in modern history, Americans’ support for Israel has sharply fallen, a shift I would argue can be attributed in part to TikTok’s video-sharing capabilities. In particular, the app’s stitching feature, which allows creators to link videos, correcting inaccuracies and presenting opposing views within a single video, has revolutionized how audiences access information and form more informed opinions.US Congress has cited concerns over Chinese data collection as justification for proposing a ban. This rationale might be appropriate for banning the app on government-issued devices, both for official and personal use. Other Americans, however, have the right to decide which technologies we use and how we share our data. Personally, I am indifferent to China possessing my data. What harm can the Chinese government do to me if I live in the United States? Also, I’d point out that viewpoints critical of Chinese policies have proliferated on TikTok, which would seem to indicate that the platform is not predominantly used for spreading Chinese propaganda.If politicians’ concern were genuinely about foreign influence, we would discuss in greater detail how Russia allegedly used Facebook to bolster Trump’s campaign and disseminate misinformation. Following this logic, we might as well consider banning Facebook.I spent a decade in college studying international affairs and psychology for my masters. So while I’m somewhat prepared for tough times in the event of TikTok ending, many others aren’t. TikTok hosts tens of thousands of small businesses who, thanks to the platform, reach millions worldwide. This platform has truly leveled the playing field, giving everyone from bedroom musicians to aspiring actors a real shot at being heard. A ban on TikTok would threaten those livelihoods.A ban on TikTok would also threaten a diverse community of creators and the global audience connected through it. As a Palestinian, TikTok gave my cause a voice, a loud one. It became a beacon for bringing the stories of Gaza’s suffering to the forefront, mobilizing awareness and action in ways no other platform has.Using TikTok’s live-streaming feature, I’ve been able to talk to hundreds of thousands of people each day about the issues Palestinians face. I personally watched the minds change of hundreds of people who asked me questions out of honest curiosity.TikTok has made a real difference in educating people about what is happening in Palestine. The stitch feature is one of the most powerful tools for debunking propaganda spread against Palestinians. This feature does not exist on other platforms and was first created by TikTok; with it, creators can correct information and respond to the spread of misinformation in real time.Removing TikTok would do more than disrupt entertainment; it would sever a lifeline for marginalized voices across the world – people like Bisan Owda, an influential young journalist in Gaza whose TikToks each reach hundreds of thousands of views – or creators like myself, whose family was driven out of Palestine in 1948, and killed during the Nakba. I’ve used TikTok to show all the paperwork of my great-grandfather’s land ownership in Palestine – and his passport – to show how his existence was taken away from him.On TikTok, you’ll find thousands of creators from different ethnic groups teaching the world about their cultures. You’ll also find disabled creators sharing their journeys and experiences in a world designed for able-bodied people. UncleTics, for example, is a creator who lives with Tourette syndrome and creates content about his life while also bringing joy to his audience.Banning TikTok wouldn’t just mean an enormous financial hit for the creators who use the platform – it would stifle the rich exchange of ideas, culture and awareness that TikTok uniquely fosters. We stand to lose a tool that has brought global issues out of the shadows and into the public eye. A ban on TikTok is a ban on ideas and hope.Almost every creator and consumer of TikTok I have spoken to does not care about potential data collection by China. Creators, in particular, don’t expect privacy when we’re posting about our lives on a public platform. If Congress wants to enact laws that make it harder for social-media companies to potentially harvest our data, Congress should do it across the board for all social media platforms – not just ones which happened to be based in non-Western countries.A TikTok ban threatens to destroy millions of jobs and silence diverse voices. It would change the world for the worse.
      Dominic Andre is a content creator and the CEO of The Lab More

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      New York governor said Black kids in the Bronx do not know the word ‘computer’

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      The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, has rapidly backtracked on remarks she made on Monday after she came under a blizzard of criticism for saying that Black children in the Bronx did not know the word “computer”.Hochul had intended her appearance at the Milken Institute Global Conference in California on Monday to showcase Empire AI, the $400m consortium she is leading to create an artificial intelligence computing center in upstate New York. Instead, she dug herself into a hole with an utterance she quickly regretted.“Right now we have, you know, young Black kids growing up in the Bronx who don’t even know what the word ‘computer’ is,” she said. For good measure, she added: “They don’t know, they don’t know these things.”The backlash was swift and piercing. Amanda Septimo, a member of the New York state assembly representing the south Bronx, called Hochul’s remarks “harmful, deeply misinformed and genuinely appalling”. She said on X that “repeating harmful stereotypes about one of our most underserved communities only perpetuates systems of abuse”.Fellow assembly member and Bronxite Karines Reyes said she was deeply disturbed by the remarks and exhorted Hochul to “do better”. “Our children are bright, brilliant, extremely capable, and more than deserving of any opportunities that are extended to other kids,” she said.Few public figures were prepared to offer the governor support. They included the speaker of the state assembly, Carl Heastie, who said her words were “inartful and hurtful” but not reflective of “where her heart is”.The civil rights leader Al Sharpton also gave her the benefit of the doubt, saying that she was trying to make a “good point” that “a lot of our community is robbed of using social media because we are racially excluded from access”.By Monday evening, Hochul had apologized. “I misspoke and I regret it,” she said.In a statement to media, she said, “Of course Black children in the Bronx know what computers are – the problem is that they too often lack access to the technology needed to get on track to high-paying jobs in emerging industries like AI.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThis is not the first time this year that Hochul has found herself with her foot in her mouth. In February she envisaged what would happen if Canada attacked a US city, as a metaphor for the Israeli military operation in Gaza in response to the 7 October Hamas attacks.“If Canada someday ever attacked Buffalo, I’m sorry, my friends, there would be no Canada the next day,” she said. That apology for a “poor choice of words” was made swiftly, too. More

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      ‘It’s just not hitting like it used to’: TikTok was in its flop era before it got banned in the US

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      TikTok is facing its most credible existential threat yet. Last week, the US Congress passed a bill that bans the short-form video app if it does not sell to an American company by this time next year. But as a former avid user whose time on the app has dropped sharply in recent months, I am left wondering – will I even be using the app a year from now?Like many Americans of my demographic (aging millennial), I first started using TikTok regularly when the Covid-19 pandemic began and lockdowns gave many of us more time than we knew how to fill.As 2020 wore on, the global news climate becoming somehow progressively worse with each passing day, what began as a casual distraction became a kind of mental health lifeline. My average total screen time exploded from four hours a day to upwards of 10 – much of which were spent scrolling my “For You” page, the main feed of algorithmically recommended videos within TikTok.At the time, content was predictable, mostly light and mind-numbing. From “Get Ready With Me” (GRWM) narratives to kitten videos and the classic TikTok viral dances, I could dive into the algorithmic oblivion anytime I wanted. I loved TikTok.The “For You” page taught me actually useful skills like sign language, crocheting and how to cook when you hate cooking (I do). It also filled my days with extremely dumb distractions like the rise (and subsequent criticisms) of a tradwife family and the politicized implosion of several influencers in 2022 over cheating allegations. I enjoy watching urban exploration videos in which people inexplicably hop down into sewers and investigate abandoned houses to see what they can find. Over the course of many months, I watched a man build an underground aquarium and fill it with live eels. I treasured every wet moment. Once I learned a dumb TikTok dance – Doja Cat’s Say So, which went mega-viral during the pandemic. I probably could still do it if pressed, but don’t look for it on my TikTok profile – I came to my senses and deleted it. I don’t post often, but I did genuinely enjoy the trend of “romanticizing your life” – setting mundane video clips to inspirational music. I was inspired to share my own attempts.But now, according to my iPhone’s Screen Time tool, my average time on TikTok ranges from 30 minutes to two hours a day – a far cry from the four-plus hours I was spending at the peak of the pandemic. My withdrawal from TikTok was not a conscious choice – it happened naturally, the same way my addiction began.As my partner put it during a recent nightly scroll before bed: “It’s just not hitting like it used to.” I still find some joy on the app. The delight is just less abundant than it was. Something has changed on TikTok. It’s become less serendipitous than before, though I don’t know when.Others seem to agree, from aggrieved fellow journalists to content creators on the platform and countless social media threads – which raises the question: as TikTok faces a potential ban in the US, was the app already on its way out?Top apps wax and wane, and content creators noticeAs with all trends, the hot social network of the moment tends to wax and wane (remember Clubhouse?). Facebook – the original top dog of social media and still the biggest by user numbers – has seen young users flee in recent years, despite overall growth bringing monthly active users to 3 billion in 2023.But unlike Meta, TikTok is not a public company – which means we may never get granular insight into its user metrics, which have surely evolved over the past few years amid political turmoil and changes to the platform. The company has recently stated that the proposed ban would affect more than 170 million monthly active users in the US.View image in fullscreenCreators – especially those who get most of their income from social media – are hyper-aware of fluctuations in the app of the moment, said Brooke Erin Duffy, associate professor of communication at Cornell University. From the time TikTok was first threatened with a ban by Donald Trump in 2020, major users of the platform raised the example of Vine – the now defunct short-form video platform – as a cautionary tale.“They are aware of the ability of an entire platform to vanish with very little notice,” she said. “[The potential Trump ban] was four years ago, and since then there has been an ebb and flow of panic about the future among creators.”With that in mind, a number of creators who grew a large audience on TikTok have been diversifying, trying to migrate their fanbases to other platforms in case TikTok disappears. Others have grown frustrated with the algorithm, reporting wildly fluctuating TikTok views and impressions for their videos. Gaming influencer DejaTwo said TikTok has been “very frustrating lately” in a recent post explaining why they believe influencers are leaving the platform. “The only reason I still use TikTok is because of brand loyalty,” they said.The unwelcome arrival of the TikTok ShopIn September 2023, TikTok launched its TikTok Shop feature – an algorithm-driven in-app shopping experience in which users can buy products directly hawked by creators.The feature has a number of benefits for TikTok: it boosts monetization of its highly engaged audience, allowing users to make purchases without ever leaving the platform. Integrating shopping will also allow TikTok to compete with platforms like Instagram and Facebook, which have long integrated shopping capabilities, as well as with Chinese e-commerce sites like Temu and Shein, which promise cheap abundance. It is also part of a broader effort from TikTok to move away from politicized videos and other content that may jeopardize its tenuous position with regulators, many of whom believe it has been boosting pro-Palestinian content despite all evidence to the contrary.Some users have pushed back against the shop’s new omnipresence on the app, often characterized as a kind of QVC shopping channel for gen Z users, stating that it takes away from the fun, unique and interesting original content that earned TikTok its popularity.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The shopping push has not been very interesting or resonant in general, especially for younger users,” said Damian Rollison, director of market insights for digital marketing firm SOCi. “Shopping is not what appeals to US users on TikTok.”TikTok’s push of the shopping features, in spite of little interest from its audience, underscores the lack of say users and creators have over their favorite platforms and how they work. Creators report feeling pressure to participate in the shopping features lest their content get buried in the algorithm, said Duffy.“There is a tension for creators between gravitating towards what they think TikTok is trying to reward, and their own sense of what the most important and fulfilling kinds of content are,” she said.The magic algorithm – TikTok’s biggest asset (or liability)TikTok’s success has been largely attributed to its uncannily accurate algorithm, which monitors user behavior and serves related content on the “For You” page. According to a recent report, ByteDance would only consider selling the platform to comply with the new bill if it didn’t include the algorithm, which would make it nearly worthless.The algorithm, however, can be too responsive for some users. One friend told me they accidentally watched several videos of a niche Brazilian dance and their feed has been inundated with related content ever since. Conversely, I find if I spend less time on TikTok, when I log back in I find myself besieged with inside jokes that I am not quite in on – creators open monologues with “we’ve all seen that video about [fill in the blank]”. Most recently, my feed was filled with meta-memes commenting on a video about a series of videos about a Chinese factory I’d never heard of.“More so than any other platform. TikTok is very trend-based,” said Nathan Barry, CEO of ConvertKit. “It has its own kind of culture that you have to be tapped into in order to grow in a way you don’t see on platforms like Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts.”The mystery of the algorithm is not unique to TikTok. Because social media platforms are not transparent about how they decide which content reaches users, it creates confusion and paranoia among creators about “shadow banning”, when content is demoted in the algorithm and shown less.“Because these algorithms are opaque and kind of concealed behind the screens, creators are left to discuss among themselves what the algorithm rewards or punishes,” said Duffy. “Companies like to act like they are neutral conduits that just reflect the interests and tastes of the audience, but, of course, they have a perverse level of power to shape these systems.”TikTok’s legacyEven if TikTok refuses to sell and shuts down forever, as its parent company seems to want, the app has left an indelible mark on the social media landscape and on the lives of the tens of millions who used it. Many users have stated they quit their traditional jobs to become full-time influencers, and will be financially devastated if TikTok disappears. In Montana, where a ban was passed (and later reversed) many such influencers lobbied aggressively against it.TikTok’s impact on me will continue in the form of countless pointless facts that are now buried deep in my brain: yesterday I spent 10 minutes of my life learning about the history of Bic pens. I watch ASMR – autonomous sensory meridian response – videos there when I am trying to fall asleep. BookTok influencers still give me legitimately enjoyable recommendations. The other day I laughed until I cried at this video. Entertaining drama remains, including one woman who was recently accused of pretending to be Amish to gain followers. I watched a cat give birth to a litter of kittens on TikTok Live just last week.The platform’s biggest legacy moving forward is the solidification of a demand for short-form videos, said Rollison – one that its competitors have yet to meet successfully. While Meta has invested heavily in Instagram Reels and Alphabet in YouTube Shorts, no platforms have found the secret sauce that TikTok has to keep users highly engaged.The Reels venture at Meta had been growing rapidly when the company last released numbers specific to the platform. In recent earnings reports, Meta did not report Reels engagement numbers specifically, but its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said that Reels alone now makes up 50% of user time spent on Instagram. Still, the company said it is focusing on scaling the product, and not yet monetizing it. Alphabet has also declined to share recent numbers on its Shorts, but said in October the videos average 70bn daily views. Executives called the product a “long-term bet for the business” in Alphabet’s most recent earnings call.“TikTok is still the defining standard of success in the realm of short-form video,” Rollison said. “It has defined a need, and if it goes away, that is going to create a vacuum that will be filled by something. The need for short-form video will survive the death of any particular platform.” More

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      Dark Brandon popping off: is Joe Biden’s ‘cringe’ TikTok helping or hurting him?

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      In Joe Biden’s TikTok debut, timed to the Super Bowl in February, the president answered rapid-fire questions like “Chiefs or Niners?” (neither, he picked the Eagles because his wife’s a “Philly girl”) and flashed the Dark Brandon meme. He got more than 10m views, so by pure metrics, the video was no flop. But to use one of TikTok’s favorite disses, for many gen Z viewers it felt “cringe” – even pandering. Worse still, the TikTok, captioned “lol hey guys”, made the rounds after Israel struck Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza strip. Biden’s jokes infuriated users who flooded the post with the comment “WHAT ABOUT RAFAH?”“I don’t want my president to be a TikTok influencer,” read the headline of one USA Today editorial. One (actual) influencer told CNN the president’s attempt at meme-ing felt “performative”. A warm welcome to the app, it was not. But Biden’s team kept posting.Biden’s TikTok account, Biden-Harris HQ, has put out more than 150 videos since February, notching over 3.9m likes and 313,000 followers. That’s more than Maxwell Frost (570,000 likes, 96,000 followers), who became the first gen Z member of Congress in 2023, but a fraction of Bernie Sanders’ 11.4m likes or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 987,000 followers on the app. Congressman Jeff Jackson, a Republican from North Carolina with 2.2 million TikTok followers, is one of the most visible politicians on the app. His posts almost always hit more than a million views – only 11 of Biden’s videos have hit more than a million views.View image in fullscreenIf the idea of a president trying to go viral on TikTok seems frivolous, consider what’s at stake for Biden, who’s running a tight election race against Donald Trump. Gen Z was crucial in staving off a predicted “red wave” during the 2022 midterms, and Biden hasn’t exactly locked down the demographic for 2024: a Harvard poll from April found that Biden leads Trump by eight percentage points among 18- to 28-year olds, down from the 23-point lead Biden had at the same point in the 2020 election. The president’s continued support for Israel in the war on Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 people, is eroding youth support – especially as pro-Palestinian protests spread across US college campuses.TikTok is the most downloaded app among 18- to 24-year olds, and many young people count it as their main source of news. Is Biden winning over young voters by meeting them where they are?Dunking on TrumpHardly any Biden-Harris HQ TikToks show Biden awkwardly interacting with pop culture – not after what happened with his Super Bowl post. Instead, the account has hit its stride focusing on policy issues and dunking on conservatives.More than half of Biden’s TikTok content reminds viewers of Trump’s worst gaffes, such as the times Trump suggested that Americans inject bleach to ward off the coronavirus, or when he stared directly at the 2017 eclipse. The fight to protect abortion rights also features prominently. One post pulls a quote from a recent press conference, during which the former president bragged about ending Roe v Wade. Another reminds viewers that a Trump-endorsed candidate for Michigan state senate seat, Jacky Eubanks, called for banning birth control and gay marriage.“It’s very clear to me that Biden’s primary goals on TikTok are in line with his digital goals overall: to highlight and remind folks how dangerous Trump is, and to highlight the accomplishments that Biden has made that no one knows about,” said Josh Klemons, a Democratic digital strategist.View image in fullscreenNoting that many of TikTok’s younger users “didn’t live through Trump’s first presidency as an adult”, Klemons stressed that it was important Biden use his TikTok to zero in on the former president’s catastrophic track record. TikTok is a largely progressive platform, where anti-Trump content does well, and anti-Trump posts are among Biden’s most-watched TikToks. (They’re also an invitation to trolls: top comments on the bleach post, including “Biden sucks” and “Ban Joe Biden”, are all from pro-Trump accounts.)Many Biden TikToks have hundreds of thousands of views, with videos going moderately viral by TikTok standards. That’s not bad reach, but it could be better.A genuinely moving Biden TikTok, seemingly pulled from a campaign ad, shows a man named Bob approaching the president in a restaurant and shaking his hand in thanks for lowering the cost of insulin. It showcases Biden’s well-honed ability to connect one-on-one with voters … but it has only 224k views. Compare that with someone like Jackson, whose most recent TikTok on the war in Ukraine earned more than 1m views.One of Biden-Harris HQ’s highest-performing videos of late pulls a clip from an interview the president did with Howard Stern, in which he described Trump’s response to the January 6 riot. “When they were storming the Capitol … he was sitting in that dining area off the Oval Office for three hours… He said nothing … It was almost criminal.” The clip has 233,000 views – not a flop, but not a rousing success either.In another TikTok, the Biden campaign reposted a video of Steve Bannon talking about Project 2025, an extensive collection of proposals intended to reshape the federal government in support of a Republican agenda if Trump wins the election. Bannon says a second Trump administration would put his opponents in prison “on the evening after we’ve won”. The Biden campaign captioned the clip: “Project 2025 deserves more attention.”It’s a good caption – and Project 2025 does get attention on TikTok, usually in posts that do better than Biden’s. A recent TikTok from the voting advocacy group NowThis Impact, which has 3.3 million followers, also shared information about Project 2025. That video got more than 3.6m views. Biden’s received 43,000, while another Project 2025-themed TikTok from Biden, featuring Lara Trump, received just under half a million viewers.Bringing in backupThough Biden appears in some of his account’s TikToks – usually dragging Trump – the account isn’t all about him. (Perhaps a lesson learned from Hillary Clinton, who used social media during the 2016 race as if she were typing the tweets herself.) Instead, it often taps surrogates to help make Biden’s case. In one TikTok, Sanders speaks about supporting Biden despite not agreeing with him on every issue – a line the campaign no doubt hopes will land with gen Z voters who are against the war in Gaza. AOC touts Biden’s recent record on the climate crisis, and members of the Kennedy family filmed a video saying they support Biden, a swipe against the third-party candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr.View image in fullscreenBiden also posted a clip of Frost, the token gen Z politician, reminding his peers in Congress that Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene had spoken at an event held by white supremacists in 2022. “Someone like Maxwell Frost is going to hit differently [to that audience],” Klemons said. He also pulls in young viewers who might not realize they’re watching what is effectively a Biden campaign ad.Other Biden TikToks smartly mimic influencer content, with what appear to be younger campaign staffers speaking directly to camera about a abortion, immigration or, again, Trump gaffes. “You’ll never believe what Trump is doing in the courtroom,” one such host says in an intro that cuts to a screenshot of a New York Times report on the former president “struggling to stay awake” during his New York trial.“I like how they use younger people from their campaign to be some of the messengers,” said Ashley Aylward, a research manager at the gen Z-focused, DC-based consulting group Hit Strategies. “I think they should lean into that more, and just kind of let [the young people] take it all over. They could make ‘a day in the life working for the Biden campaign’, or a video that humanizes these people and shows that voting for this administration isn’t just voting for Biden, but it’s a group of diverse voices.”Aylward also recommended the account post fewer videos of Biden stumping – recent TikToks that feature Biden himself were filmed during campaign appearances.“If someone isn’t interested in politics, that’s not going to end up on their For You page, and if it does, they’ll scroll by it as soon as they see a podium,” she said. “But if they see a younger person doing a day in the life, or talking through a current event, it’s a smart way to reel people in without them even knowing they’re watching a campaign video.”And though it’s not quite a proxy, Biden’s TikTok has leaned into his so-called Dark Brandon persona, a laser-eyed character that riffs upon a pro-Trump meme. When Biden makes a joke at Trump’s expense during a speech, that’s supposedly Dark Brandon “popping off” or “dragging Trump”, as recent TikToks put it.“I actually do love the humor and using Dark Brandon to show that he can make jokes about himself,” Aylward said. “The account uses young people language in the TikTok caption, like ‘Biden cooks Trump,’ but they aren’t having Biden use the language himself. They’re showing this all from a young person’s point of view, engaging in the language they use.”Whether the effect is cringey or not, it seems, depends on one’s taste.Silence on Gaza and a possible TikTok banBiden’s TikTok account has faced more serious criticisms than cringey-ness. One of young people’s biggest concerns is the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza. In the comment section of his videos, users frequently ask Biden to engage with the topic or to order a ceasefire, but the account has remained silent on the issue.“Biden’s TikTok is clearly a one-way form of communication,” said Yini Zhang, an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo who studies social media and politics. “They’re sticking to some clearly thought-out talking points. They have issues they want to avoid, like Gaza, and the TikTok page is not as interactive as we often think it might be.”Another issue is the irony of Biden’s team putting resources toward TikTok when just last week, Biden signed a measure that could see the app banned in the US. (TikTok remains blocked on most government devices, per a 2022 law.)“It’s a funny position for him to be in,” Klemons said. “I can’t think of a situation that’s similar, where somebody is actively using a platform that they’re actively trying to get rid of. But they need to be where the people are.”It would take at least nine months for the app to disappear if it does at all, so Biden can milk the platform for the entire election cycle. Trump, who does not have a TikTok account, is currently opposed to a TikTok ban. (He’s posting furiously on Truth Social, where, funnily enough, Biden-Harris HQ also runs an account.) In fact, many politicians don’t even touch TikTok due to security concerns.TikTok’s allure has always been its supposed authenticity, with the most popular personas on the app appearing real, raw, unfiltered – even if many of their videos are highly scripted. “They want to project this persona of being authentic in a way that maximizes their appeal, but they also have to be careful in what they say,” Zhang said.Biden is no different. His TikTok follows the trends of the platform. His memes aren’t groundbreaking, but they’re not totally embarrassing either. His stats are middling, and he avoids engaging directly with young people on tough issues. Viewers are constantly reminded of his greatest hits, a persona he’s cultivated through decades in the public eye, but ultimately, the account is just another campaign mouthpiece. A TikTok alone will not clinch an election. More

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      Chinese students in US tell of ‘chilling’ interrogations and deportations

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      Stopped at the border, interrogated on national security grounds, laptops and mobile phones checked, held for several hours, plans for future research shattered.Many western scholars are nervous about travelling to China in the current political climate. But lately it is Chinese researchers working at US universities who are increasingly reporting interrogations – and in several cases deportations – at US airports, despite holding valid work or study visas for scientific research.Earlier this month the Chinese embassy in Washington said more than 70 students “with legal and valid materials” had been deported from the US since July 2021, with more than 10 cases since November 2023. The embassy said it had complained to the US authorities about each case.The exact number of incidents is difficult to verify, as the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency does not provide detailed statistics about refusals at airports. A spokesperson said that “all international travellers attempting to enter the United States, including all US citizens, are subject to examination”.But testimonies have circulated on Chinese social media, and academics are becoming increasingly outspoken about what they say is the unfair treatment of their colleagues and students.“The impact is huge,” says Qin Yan, a professor of pathology at Yale School of Medicine in Connecticut, who says that he is aware of more than a dozen Chinese students from Yale and other universities who have been rejected by the US in recent months, despite holding valid visas. Experiments have stalled, and there is a “chilling effect” for the next generation of Chinese scientists.The number of people affected is a tiny fraction of the total number of Chinese students in the US. The State Department issued nearly 300,000 visas to Chinese students in the year to September 2023. But the personal accounts speak to a broader concern that people-to-people exchanges between the world’s two biggest economies and scientific leaders are straining.The refusals appear to be linked to a 2020 US rule that barred Chinese postgraduate students with links to China’s “military-civil fusion strategy”, which aims to leverage civilian infrastructure to support military development. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute thinktank estimates that 95 civilian universities in China have links to the defence sector.Nearly 2,000 visas applications were rejected on that basis in 2021. But now people who pass the security checks necessary to be granted a visa by the State Department are being turned away at the border by CBP, a different branch of government.“It is very hard for a CBP officer to really evaluate the risk of espionage,” said Dan Berger, an immigration lawyer in Massachusetts, who represents a graduate student at Yale who, midway through her PhD, was sent back from Washington’s Dulles airport in December, and banned from re-entering the US for five years.“It is sudden,” Berger said. “She has an apartment in the US. Thankfully, she doesn’t have a cat. But there are experiments that were in progress.”Academics say that scrutiny has widened to different fields – particularly medical sciences – with the reasons for the refusals not made clear.X Edward Guo, a professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University, said that part of the problem is that, unlike in the US, military research does sometimes take place on university campuses. “It’s not black and white … there are medical universities that also do military. But 99% of those professors are doing biomedical research and have nothing to do with the military.”But “if you want to come to the US to study AI, forget it,” Guo said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOne scientist who studies the use of artificial intelligence to model the impact of vaccines said he was rejected at Boston Logan International airport. He was arriving to take up a place at Harvard Medical School as a postdoctoral researcher. “I never thought I would be humiliated like this,” he wrote on the Xiaohongshu app, where he recounted being quizzed about his masters’ studies in China and asked if he could guarantee that his teachers in China had not passed on any of his research to the military.He did not respond to an interview request from the Observer. Harvard Medical School declined to confirm or comment on the specifics of individual cases, but said that “decisions regarding entry into the United States are under the purview of the federal government and outside of the school’s and the university’s jurisdiction.”The increased scrutiny comes as Beijing and Washington are struggling to come to an agreement about the US-China Science and Technology Agreement, a landmark treaty signed in 1979 that governs scientific cooperation between the two countries. Normally renewed every five years, since August it has been sputtering through six-month extensions.But following years of scrutiny from the Department of Justice investigation into funding links to China, and a rise in anti-Asian sentiment during the pandemic, ethnically Chinese scientists say the atmosphere is becoming increasingly hostile.“Before 2016, I felt like I’m just an American,” said Guo, who became a naturalised US citizen in the late 1990s. “This is really the first time I’ve thought, OK, you’re an American but you’re not exactly an American.”Additional research by Chi Hui Lin More