The 2022 election turned out to be a major letdown for Republicans, and China may have had something to do with that. According to Forbes, the communists used TikTok to spread political messages, largely critical of the GOP, in the months leading up to election day.
The accounts in question have millions of followers and were able to accumulate tens of millions of views, spreading propaganda the Chinese state found useful. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, though, that they felt Democrats remaining in power most benefited them.
TikTok accounts run by the propaganda arm of the Chinese government have accumulated millions of followers and tens of millions of views, many of them on videos editorializing about U.S. politics without clear disclosure that they were posted by a foreign government.
The accounts are managed by MediaLinks TV, a registered foreign agent and Washington D.C.-based outpost of the main Chinese Communist Party television news outlet, China Central Television. The largest of them are @Pandaorama, which features cute videos about Chinese culture, @The…Optimist, which posts about sustainability, and @NewsTokss, which features coverage of U.S. national and international news.
In the run-up to the 2022 elections, the @NewsTokss account criticized some candidates (mostly Republicans), and favored others (mostly Democrats). A video from July began with the caption “Cruz, Abbott Don’t Care About Us”; a video from October was captioned “Rubio Has Done Absolutely Nothing.” But @NewsTokss did not target only Republicans; another October video asked viewers whether they thought President Joe Biden’s promise to sign a bill codifying abortion rights was a “political manipulation tactic.” Nothing in these videos disclosed to viewers that they were being pushed by a foreign government.
If you want a case study of how biased the press is, consider that we’ve known for years that TikTok is a Chinese information operation, and yet, news outlets spend far more time crying about free speech on Twitter. Why is that? Could it be because the left doesn’t actually care about “disinformation” or “election interference”–as long as they find it politically helpful?
That’s a rhetorical question, obviously. We had a years-long freakout that still gets brought up to this day over supposed Russian interference in the 2016 election. Heck, newly-minted Democrat House leader Hakeem Jeffries even claims that Donald Trump’s presidency was illegitimate because of a few hundred thousand dollars in memes being spread on Facebook. Yet, those hysterics are silent when the topic shifts to China.
And don’t kid yourself, the Chinese have been influencing our elections at a far higher level than Russia, for far longer than just the 2022 mid-terms. There’s absolutely no question that Xi Jinping and his government wanted Joe Biden to win in 2020. On that note, it sure is convenient that COVID-19 probably leaked from a Chinese lab just in time to make that a reality, isn’t it?
When you take a step back and start putting all the pieces together, the left’s attachment to China is astonishing. Just days ago, Dr. Anthony Fauci defended the Chinese, suggesting we shouldn’t press them on the origins of the coronavirus because their completely honest and not-at-all-controlled scientists might get mad. Then there are the Biden family business dealings with the communist nation to consider. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, of course, but those instances serve as stark examples of how comfortable Democrats are with fluffing the Chinese for personal and political gain.
Returning to TikTok itself, it is insane that the government continues to allow it to operate within the United States. The Chinese are using it to spread their propaganda and to mine the personal data of Americans. Donald Trump attempted to shut it down years ago, but Democrats screamed bloody murder. Now, we have some idea of why that was the case. These people don’t give two shakes about “election interference.” They just want to win, and they’ll gladly accept help from the Chicoms if it boosts them.