Pro-Harris TikTok felt safe in an algorithmic bubble — until election day
by Mia Sato from The Verge - All Posts on (#6S7G9)
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images In the weeks leading up to the US presidential election, Kacey Smith was feeling hopeful. Smith, who supported Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign, says she knew it would be a close race between the Democratic nominee and Republican Donald Trump. But as she scrolled TikTok, she believed Harris would be victorious.
But Election Day approached, and she started to sense red flags in that positivity. She recalls TikTok serving her enthusiasm for reproductive choice with videos encouraging women's rights over gas prices" - implying, falsely, she thought, the choice was either/or." The rhetoric fit well inside her feed filled with strangers, but as a campaign strategy, it felt limiting and risky. When I started seeing that messaging play...