Biden allies fundraising to compete with Trump’s social media successes
A super PAC is raising millions of dollars to help President Biden compete with former President Trump’s recent social media success.
Future Forward USA Action, based in Palo Alto, Calif., is backed by tech giants like Facebook’s co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and LinkedIn founder Reed Hoffman. The group is raising millions to better understand the algorithms that help Trump create viral videos, Reuters reported.
The group plans to collaborate with left-leaning influencers to help generate new content and disperse it online as Democrats worry that they are losing a battle with Republicans over social media.
Reuters said the super PAC’s current effort is focused on Instagram’s Reels, YouTube Shorts and TikTok and the many influencers who have captivated the attention and support of millions of users online.
“Future Forward is around to help solve problems, and TikTok is a problem and the group is reasonable trying to solve that problem,” a source told the outlet.
The Biden-Harris campaign started a TikTok account in February in an attempt to reach younger voters as worries about the 81-year-old’s age persist.
Biden signed legislation that could potentially ban the app in the United States.
In early June, Trump joined TikTok and surpassed Biden’s followers in less than 24 hours. Trump’s first video amassed more than 2.3 million likes and 38 million views in less than 15 hours.
The Hill has reached out to Future Forward for comment, but Reuters noted that the group rarely talks about its activities. The super PAC plans to spend $250 million on television and digital ads this campaign season, the outlet said.
TikTok isn’t the only social platform the Biden campaign has to worry about.
In late May, a social media analysis found that on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, many accounts supporting Trump and posting criticism about the current president were fake. The analysis found that 15 percent of the accounts praising Trump were fake while 7 percent praising Biden were fake.