User:Polstamin/Social media in the 2020 United States presidential election

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Reddit became an important social media platform in the primaries, with most major candidates having their own 'subreddits', or dedicated community noticeboards. The largest of these was 'r/SandersForPresident', which accumulated nearly 500,000 followers before Sanders dropped out of the primaries. Bernie Sanders amounted a wide range of social media supporters not only from Reddit, but from Instagram, Twitter and various other platforms. His Twitter following was most significant, and at the time of the election amassed over 10 million followers, which was more than most of his competitor's followings combined. Bernie was able to raise $100 million through his social media supporters and untraditional methods of fundraising supported by his loyal fan base, dubbed 'Bernie Bros'.

The Bernie Bros ended up facing backlash from the candidate throughout the election as there were multiple instances of the fan base harassing individuals who disagreed with Sanders. Most notably, a situation where union leaders in Nevada found issue with Bernie's Medicare policies, prompting The Bernie Bros to leak the women's phone numbers, home addresses and personal information online. Democratic primaries candidate Elizabeth Warren then called on Sanders to take action against this form of extremity and was met with his supporters flooding her social media pages with snake emojis and harsh comments as a form of retaliation. Sanders stood firmly against this form of harassment, and called on his supporters publicly to put a stop to this negativity indefinitely.

Third Party Candidates
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The 2020 presidential election proved to be a time for third party candidates to make their social media presence known online in addition to the traditional democratic or republican nominees.

Front runner of the third party race, libertarian Jo Jorgensen's most prominent social media moment was her announcement that she was going to cancel her 'Let Her Speak' rally after being bitten by a bat. Jo's 'Let Her Speak' rally and movement gained traction online as she wanted a place in the presidential debates next to Trump and Biden after securing her spot on the ballots of all fifty states.

With Twitter being the prominent form of his communication, Kanye West's surprising election announcement was made through a tweet on July 5, 2020 where he wrote "We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future. I am running for president of the United States 🇺🇸! #2020VISION" Many flocked to his support such as business man Elon Musk, and numerous online supporters of 'The Birthday Party', his newly established platform. The rapper claimed he also wanted to make the White House similar to Black Panther's Wakanda, among other goals. West's announcement and lack of seriousness caused many to question the legitimacy of his campaign, yet he still garnered 60,000 votes total.

Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins spoke about West's announcement and cleared on social media that their intentions as third party candidates are nowhere near similar. Hawkins even commented in an interview that the announcement is a "Republican dirty trick". Hawkins currently holds a platform on Twitter with 56,500 followers and has won the Green Party nomination previously in 2010, 2014, and 2018.

Influencer Impact
The 2020 United States presidential election is the first American presidential election that relied heavily on influencers' platforms to reach young voters. This is largely due to the fact that 72% of citizens who are of voting age use social media and receive their political education from these platforms. Many young influencers and were vocal about their support for Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Between October 21st and October 23rd of 2020 there were 6.6 million mentions of Trump and Biden on social media, 72% of those mentions belonging to Biden. TikToks influence was so strong that President Trump threatened to shut TikTok down due to its impact on the 2020 election. Social media, especially TikTok, was a way for both parties to connect to young viewers. Certain creators started gaining a large popularity due to their political content. Twitter is another social media platform that has a strong ability to sway voters political values. A quarter of American adults use Twitter, and studies have proven that Twitter aided in lowering Trumps votes during the 2020 election.

TikTok
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TikTok is a social media platform that people use for various reasons. During the 2020 presidential election, users started uploading videos about their own political values

A space normally meant for funny, entertainment media, turned into a political zone during the 2020 election where users would post about their political views and beliefs. The rise of TikTok within Generation Z (often called GenZ) gave a central space for candidates on all sides to promote their campaign to the youths. Accounts such as @tiktokforbiden gained hundreds of thousands of followers due to their platform being a place where creators could make videos about their political views. Political hype houses like @conservativehypehouse, @TikTokrepublicans, and @libralhypehouse have also sprung up that are dedicated to content about the election. Though the political contents on Tiktok range from the far left to the far right, the platform is still thought to be left leaning since left leaning accounts like @tiktokforbiden gains around 100,000 views and 50,000 likes on their videos while right leaning accounts like @conservativehypehouse gains around 75,000 views and 20,000 likes on their videos.

The influence of TikTok and other social media platforms are argued to have a large influence on the voter turnout of Generation Z. Compared to the 2016 election, the 2020 election voter turnout for ages 18 to 29 rose by 8 points. In the U.S. alone, there are over 175 million users on TikTok.

With the way TikTok runs, it is very easy to spread individual values to others through the use of TikTok Trends. For example, during the 2020 election a viral song being used on the app was "This is America" by Childish Gambino. People would use this song as the background of issues occuring in America, most commonly seen to showcase the Black Lives Matter movement. Many people argued that this was a "patriotic brainwash" forced upon young viewers.