International
Elections in the United States: the battle between Harris and Trump is also fought on TikTok
Reach as many young people as possible, publish content that goes viral or ridicule the opponent with memes. These are some of the ingredients that make up the strategy of the candidates for the presidency of the United States, the Democrat Kamala Harris and the Republican Donald Trump, who also compete to mobilize the votes of Generation Z through TikTok.
The current vice president of the country and the former president accumulate among the two more than 10 million followers on the Chinese social network, an effective electoral tool to capture the young vote on November 5 … Despite the demands and attempts to close the platform in the United States for considering that it represents a “threat” to national security and seriously affect the mental health of minors.
It is no coincidence that Trump and Kamala Harris have chosen this platform to reach the youngest: according to a study by the Pew Research Center, more and more Americans under the age of 30 receive news through TikTok and 52% of the users of the social network use it to get information.
In addition, it is estimated that more than 40 million young Americans of Generation Z (18 to 27 years old in 2024) will be able to vote in these elections.
In fact, the vote of this age group can be decisive in states such as Michigan, where the youth voter turnout rate was one of the highest in the country in 2022 and where they have one of the highest young voter registration rates in the United States.
What is your strategy? Who is behind their profiles?
Both aspirants compete with a personal profile (@kamalaharris, @realdonaldtrump) full of cuts and public appearances, to which they add another account focused on supporting the party’s electoral campaign (@teamtrump, @kamalahq) and based on the cultural language of the internet and where they ‘shot’ ingenious viral memes.
These accounts are run by a young team that plays with TikTok content and music trends to “attack” or ridicule their opponent and get their video to reach millions of people through humor.
For example, a basic image of dolphins with a background of color and fantasy with the message “Donald Trump’s 2025 project is a threat to our democracy” – accompanied by a Clean Bandit song, ‘Symphony’ -, obtained more than nine million views and more than 7,000 comments on @kamalahq’s profile.
Two days later, Donald Trump’s social media team responded by replicating the meme on his campaign profile with the following text: “Vote for Trump unless you want to be recruited to fight in World War III.” Result? Eight million views on @teamtrump’s profile.
In addition to memes, the candidates for the White House have used viral music on more than one occasion for their videos in rallies and have even created sounds from statements by their opponent. All this allows them to upload content with a humorous tone that can become a trend while ridiculing the rival.
Content creators enter campaign
In addition to memes and cuts with a humorous tone, both have chosen to involve content creators, influencers and celebrities in their campaigns to reach those people who do not consume politics regularly on TikTok and to whom, therefore, the application in principle does not recommend this type of video due to its hyper-personalized algorithm.
Trump used this strategy from the beginning on his personal account, which he used to promote his appearances in interviews and channels with streamers, YouTubers and tiktokers.
One of the first videos he uploaded to his profile was with the American content creator and boxer Logan Paul to promote their meeting on Paul’s YouTube channel. The promotional video of only six seconds was viewed by more than 160 million people.
Growth of your accounts in networks
Likewise, Donald Trump published another video on his profile two months ago dancing with American video game streamer Adin Ross, to celebrate the “success” of his video in ‘streaming’ with more than 2 million views on Ross’s YouTube channel.
Neither Paul nor Ross usually upload political content on their profiles, but they did publish their meetings with the former president and that content traveled to the mobile of millions of users on networks.
Harris, for his part, interviewed various content creators at the Democratic National Convention held in August in Chicago in order to appear on the profiles of influential people in cosmetics, lifestyle or humor, all of them far from politics, as was the case with @queencitytrends, with more than three million followers on TikTok.
In addition, Kamala Harris also opted for a well-known American comedy podcast called ‘CallHerDaddy’ with content creator Alexandra Cooper.
According to the social media analysis and statistics platform Social Blade, these strategies have had a positive impact on both the campaign accounts and the personal accounts of both candidates. For example, the vice president has gained more than 300,000 followers and the former president more than a million in the last 30 days on the campaign profiles of @teamtrump and @kamalahq.
The tightest elections of the last century
However, it remains to be seen whether this success on the social network translates into votes from Generation Z in the United States elections on November 5.
According to the latest forecast of the FiveThiryEight portal based on the average of surveys published nationally and in key states, Trump achieves a slight advantage over Harris and has a 52% chance of winning.
Two weeks ago, the forecast of the same portal gave Harris a 58% chance of defeating Trump in one of the tightest and tightest elections of the last century in the United States.
International
Deportation flight lands in Venezuela; government denies criminal gang links
A flight carrying 175 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrived in Caracas on Sunday. This marks the third group to return since repatriation flights resumed a week ago, and among them is an alleged member of a criminal organization, according to Venezuelan authorities.
Unlike previous flights operated by the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, this time, an aircraft from the U.S. airline Eastern landed at Maiquetía Airport, on the outskirts of Caracas, shortly after 2:00 p.m. with the deportees.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who welcomed the returnees at the airport, stated that the 175 repatriated individuals were coming back “after being subjected, like all Venezuelans, to persecution” and dismissed claims that they belonged to the criminal organization El Tren de Aragua.
However, Cabello confirmed that “for the first time in these flights we have been carrying out, someone of significance wanted by Venezuelan justice has arrived, and he is not from El Tren de Aragua.” Instead, he belongs to a gang operating in the state of Trujillo. The minister did not disclose the individual’s identity or provide details on where he would be taken.
International
Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”
The son of renowned journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, José Carlos Zamora, has denounced as “illegal” the court order that sent his father back to a Guatemalan prison on March 3, after already spending 819 days behind barsover a highly irregular money laundering case.
“My father’s return to prison was based on an arbitrary and illegal ruling. It is also alarming that the judge who had granted him house arrest received threats,” José Carlos Zamora told EFE in an interview on Saturday.
The 67-year-old journalist was sent back to prison inside the Mariscal Zavala military barracks on March 3, when Judge Erick García upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the house arrest granted to him in October. Zamora had already spent 819 days in prison over an alleged money laundering case.
His son condemned the situation as “unacceptable”, stating that the judge handling the case “cannot do his job in accordance with the law due to threats against his life.”
International
Miyazaki’s style goes viral with AI but at what cost?
This week, you may have noticed that everything—from historical photos and classic movie scenes to internet memes and recent political moments—has been reimagined on social media as Studio Ghibli-style portraits. The trend quickly went viral thanks to ChatGPT and the latest update of OpenAI’s chatbot, released on Tuesday, March 25.
The newest addition to GPT-4o has allowed users to replicate the distinctive artistic style of the legendary Japanese filmmaker and Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki (My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away). “Today is a great day on the internet,” one user declared while sharing popular memes in Ghibli format.
While the trend has captivated users worldwide, it has also highlighted ethical concerns about AI tools trained on copyrighted creative works—and what this means for the livelihoods of human artists.
Not that this concerns OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, which has actively encouraged the “Ghiblification”experiments. Its CEO, Sam Altman, even changed his profile picture on the social media platform X to a Ghibli-style portrait.
Miyazaki, now 84 years old, is known for his hand-drawn animation approach and whimsical storytelling. He has long expressed skepticism about AI’s role in animation. His past remarks on AI-generated animation have resurfaced and gone viral again, particularly when he once said he was “utterly disgusted” by an AI demonstration.
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