Are You Immune to Propaganda: The Alt-Right Influence on Tiktok

By Madelyn D. ‘25

Image Credit: south china morning post

On January 18th, 2025, the United States enacted a temporary ban on the social media app, TikTok, but reversed it the following day. Post-ban, I opened the app to a notification that stated, “Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!” Along with the notification came a plethora of videos thanking Trump for bringing back the app.

Did Trump save TikTok? While it may appear so, President Trump signed the original executive order to ban TikTok on August 6th of 2020, which former President Joe Biden would later sign as well. On a Truth Social post in 2023, Trump stated, “ ‘Has anybody noticed that everyone wants to go after, and destroy, TIKTOK due to China influence and National Security? When I wanted to disable TIKTOK 3 years ago, I was met with opposition from RINOS to Democrats to everyone else… Sadly, I’ve been right about everything!’”

Posts appeared on the app saying things like “Thank you President Trump.” Banning TikTok himself and bringing it back to appear as a savior in the eyes of the American people, Trump is akin to villains like Emperor Palpatine, who instigated a war only to pin it on the Jedis and claimed they were traitors. As far stretched as this comparison may seem, Trump having a villainous savior complex seemed to me so dystopian and manipulative that I unknowingly compared it to fiction to avoid reality. No one wants to believe that they are susceptible to propaganda, especially with how versed we believe ourselves to be in the media. The truth is, the media we consume has manipulated every one of us at some point: whether subtly, like buying a disappointing product, or significantly, like believing the fear-mongering statements made about immigration, or thanking someone for “solving” a problem they created. According to a New York Times opinion piece entitled “How to Monitor Fake News”, "The editorial decisions of a newspaper or television news program are immediately apparent (articles published, segments aired) and so can be readily analyzed for bias and effect. By contrast, the editorial decisions of social media algorithms are opaque and slow to be discovered — even to those who run the platforms. It can take days or weeks before anyone finds out what has been disseminated by social media software."

Post-ban, many others along with myself have noticed a shift towards right-wing content in their feed. Searches like “Donald Trump rigged election” lead to a page that reads “no results found.” Some netizens have tried bypassing the algorithm by using the phrase “cute winter boots” to discuss any resistance towards Trump or his likeness. Users could use the code phrase to discuss planned protests, keep people safe from “ice cream trucks” or “ICE,” and other matters.

Censorship controls what is shown in the media and often only shows one side of the political spectrum. In turn, we lose media literacy and our country is more susceptible to becoming a centralized autocracy. History is known to repeat itself and our current censorship mirrors that of Nazi Germany. According to The Atlantic, those in a private conversation with Trump noted that he said “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had.” In Nazi Germany, economic and political distress along with fear-mongering and blaming the country’s woes on certain demographics of people. Trump has placed the blame for the crime rate in the United States on the US immigrants by spreading ideas like how Haitian immigrants are allegedly eating dogs and cats. Despite claims such as these along with a criminal record, followers of Trump are giving into the populist authoritarianism seen in those who followed Hitler. In a rally, one supporter excuses Trump’s criminal record by saying “There is a classic cartoon that shows other convicted felons. There's Gandhi, there's Nelson Mandela, and there's Trump”. Through propaganda and charisma, Trump has convinced his followers that he is one of them, despite how he does not embody the same qualities as most of his followers. The more we ignore censorship and propaganda in the media we consume, the weaker our collective strength as American citizens becomes.