TikTokTrends Week: 10
Week of September 21st
Hi!
Welcome to week 10 of TikTokTrends!
This week we will be focusing on #BreonnaTaylor, #Questions, and #SoupForMyFamily.
Also, we can all calm down. TikTok will not be banned tonight.
Let’s start!
#BreonnaTaylor
This week, the police officer who shot and killed Breonna Taylor was not charged. A police officer involved in the raid was indicted for the reckless shooting. After the announcement, protests arose in many parts of the country, and the debate about the death of Taylor has fired up again.
Many took it to TikTok to express their feelings. A TikTok creator, who says he is a lawyer, explained the situation of why the grand jury might have made the decision. While other creators focused on racial inequality in this country. Many conservative commentators such as Candice Owens, also took it to their platforms to express their feelings about the situation.
Owens, a conservative commentator and author, livestreamed this video on her Facebook page; it is a 13-minute video where she shares her opinions on the Breonna Taylor ruling. The video was shared in 8 parts on TikTok, and quickly garnered close to 2 million views. There is a lot of things Owens said in her 13-minute video, let’s fact-check some of her bigger ‘mistakes’:
Claim: Breonna Taylor was not an EMT at the time of her death.
Facts: She was. This has been confirmed by the family’s attorney and by The University of Louisville Health, both saying that she was working as an emergency room technician at two hospitals.
Claim: Taylor was actively helping her ex-boyfriend move drugs.
Facts: There is no basis for this claim. There were no drugs found in her apartment, the only tie to her and drugs is her ex-boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover. She was not actively moving drugs at the time of the raid. This claim is likely tied to Glover being caught taking a package from her house and going to a ‘known drug house’ back in January. However, Taylor was not involved in that investigation; it was Glover that was being followed at the time.
Claim: The police were trailing Taylor; her name was on the warrant.
Facts: Her name was on the warrant; however, there is no evidence of the police trailing Taylor. The police had her name on the warrant since it was her house that they were raiding. It was reported that the warrant to raid Taylor’s house was very thin.
Claim: Everything the media told you is a lie.
Facts: The media might have gotten it wrong at the beginning while the reports were still coming out, which is definitely a wrong move, but saying that all the media told you was a lie is just not true. Since the wrong reports came out, fact-checkers and journalists have been working to show the truth of the incident. The only job of a fact-checker is to accurately, with the evidence in hand, explain the situation. If people would read these fact-checks about the incident, it would have been evident that not only was all the true information out there, but it was also distributed by the media. Calling the media a lie is a way to get people further away from the truth, which is what the Trump administration has been doing since day one.
Claim: A pole camera was installed in front of Taylor’s home.
Facts: As reported by USA Today, the pole camera was installed in front of South 24th Street and Elliott Avenue, where narcotic activity was found, not on Springfield Drive where Taylor’s apartment is located.
Claim: This is not a race issue.
My Opinion: I think it is a race issue, even the shooting itself, the way the house was selected, the way Taylor was targeted, the reason that investigators thought she was dealing drugs, and the attitude the police had while going towards the raid; all these can be tied to race.
I wrote another fact-check a couple of weeks ago, where I fact-checked some of the other claims that Owens also talks about during her rant. You can check that out here.
I think the main issue we are faced with in the fact-checking world is that the people who distrust the media are not reading our fact-checks. I could go on for days, fact-checking every line that Owens talks about, but if the people who listen to her don’t read it, what is the point?
In the past, I have worked a project called VerifyThis where I aimed to create a way fact-checkers could connect with people who distrust their work. During the project, I understood that building an environment where everyone is welcome to access the truth is important. As fact-checkers, our job should not only be fact-checking, but it should also involve engaging and connecting with people who do not trust media organizations.
#Questions
There is an ongoing trend of asking Republicans and Democrats questions, then getting responses using the Duet feature, where the content creator can split the screen and react to the original post. Questions usually are about political leanings and personal beliefs.
The video above has gotten more than 4200 videos created by people answering the questions Hollie Garcia has asked in the clip above. Garcia states on her profile that she is a “Conservative Girl.” She started her questions by asking, “are you pro-life or pro-choice?” followed by “why do you call Trump a predator even though Biden has allegations too?” and going on to ask what their opinions on guns are and who their favorite president is out of the 45, adding other questions.
Many responses were similar to each other, stating that they do think Biden is also a predator, and many answers stating that JFK is their favorite president. Kellyanne Conway’s daughter, now a TikTok star, has also made a Duet answering all of these questions. Saying she thinks Biden’s health care, environment, and minimum wage policies are reasons why she supports him.
Healthcare and Environment is a point that many of these answers have in common. Nearly all of the answers are pointing out that they have someone in the military or a friend/relative who is a Trump supporter, which is one of the questions that Garcia asked, presumably thinking that democrats do not have friends and family in the military or Republicans.
The Duet feature is a very strong tool that can be used in various ways to engage with viewers on the platform. In previous weeks I talked about how the same feature was used to create a virtual Mexican wave. This week it is to answer questions posed by another creator. A couple of weeks ago, Marcus Bösch, who writes a newsletter focusing on understanding TikTok, asked about using this feature as a means of conducting interviews. I have yet to find a journalist using the Duet feature to engage creators.
#SoupForMyFamily
During a meeting with the National Association of Police Organizations Leadership on July 31st, Trump created what is now being referred to as the ‘Soup Monologue.’ He said:
“In cities across the nation, we’ve also seen police officers assaulted with bricks, rocks, bats, Molotov cocktails, frozen bottles of water […] And then they have cans of soup. Soup. And they throw the cans of soup. That’s better than a brick because you can’t throw a brick; it’s too heavy. But a can of soup, you can really put some power into that, right?” He continued the monologue by saying, “and then when they get caught, they say, no this is soup for my family.”
That is where the hashtag comes from.
The video above was created by Kelsey Fairleigh, a self-proclaimed Antifa supporter, and comedian who is mainly known for her satirical anti-Trump content and political sketches she posts on her TikTok page. Fairleigh grew in popularity in June, when she posted a video of herself using a bow and arrow, explaining that she is against the NRA and would not buy a gun.
The video above has gotten over 300 thousand views and is amongst the most popular videos on the subject. The hashtag has gotten over 3 million views, with many sketches of people acting out Trump’s speech as it plays in the background.
In Other News:
The TikTok ban has been stopped, for now. Federal judge, Carl Nichols, has halted the TikTok ban late Sunday evening. He had previously promised to make a decision before the ban took place. The lawyers for the US Government argued that the ban would allow the Commerce Department to address the national security risks. While TikTok’s attorneys argued that the ban would essentially ‘shut down speech.’ The app is still set for a full ban on November 12th if a deal is not reached.
The negotiations with TikTok-Oracle and Walmart are still ongoing. Early reports show that ByteDance would own 80% of the soon to form the company, TikTokGlobal. While Oracle executive vice president Ken Glueck said on Monday that “Americans will be the majority and ByteDance will not have ownership.” Additionally, ByteDance has said the deal would not involve the transfer of the algorithm the app is famous for using. The Chinese government has yet to approve the deal. It’s easy to say that there are still a number of weeks before we reach a full deal. I will be on the lookout, check my Twitter to see what the latest on TikTok is!
Nancy Pelosi was ridiculed online for a weird moment she had last Sunday. During a mid-interview question about the possibility of a second attempt at impeaching Trump in the coming months, asked by George Stephanopoulos, Pelosi said “good morning, Sunday morning.” The quote quickly flooded social media and was posted numerous times on TikTok, most of which have been now taken down. There are many theories as to what has happened, Republicans focusing on Pelosi not being able to talk, while others are thinking of reasons this might have happened. One of the reasons is that the communication lines might have mixed up, giving a sound from a separate program into Pelosi’s ear. Either way, the video is now being shared everywhere, bashing Pelosi and her speeches.
Pro-Trump youth are being paid to manipulate social platforms. Washington Post came out with an article explaining how teenagers and some minors are being paid to post messages steering the direction towards Turning Point Action, a prominent conservative youth organization. The Post focuses on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook; however, I can easily see the same happening on TikTok, based on how easily people can be manipulated online, this could lead social media platforms down a scary tunnel.
That is all I have for you this week! Please share this newsletter if you enjoyed reading it! Also, please don’t be shy to send me an email about what you think I should cover, or if I have missed anything. - Here is my Twitter!
Thank you for reading, hope to see you next week!