Dear John,

Last month it was reported that TikTok has twice as much pro-Trump content as pro-Biden.

Then, this week, Donald Trump himself joined TikTok, and within three days, he had 5 million followers — 14 times as many followers as President Biden.

Friends, this is a huge problem. TikTok is the number one most popular social media platform for millions of young people, and they’re not just watching videos of people dancing.

In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, about one-third of people under 30 regularly get their news from TikTok.

Here’s the good news. Inequality Media Civic Action long ago identified the major role that TikTok could play in educating the public, including about democracy and elections, and we’ve spent the last two years building up our following and learning the tricks of the trade to make content go viral and change minds.

But now, with Trump taking such a big lead on TikTok, we need to scale up our operations immediately. Will you donate $5 a month to help Inequality Media Civic Action get the truth out and reach the voters we need to win on TikTok?

Yes, Robert! I'll start a monthly donation to help get the truth out on TikTok!

No, I'm sorry, I can't chip in monthly.

Imagine if there were twice as many pro-Trump TV ads or pro-Trump news stories in the mainstream media. That’s what it’s like on TikTok, and it’s the view of the world that young people are seeing.

These are the voters who are likely to decide the 2024 election, and there’s real data showing that Trump’s advantage on TikTok is having an impact on whom people plan to vote for. In fact, polls show that 2020 Biden voters who have switched to Trump are disproportionately likely to be TikTok users.

Friends, we’ve seen this movie before. In 2016, Donald Trump was far more effective than Democrats at using Facebook to get his message out, and that was one of many factors that may well have been decisive in that election.

To their credit, the Biden campaign is putting out a huge amount of TikTok videos, as are some other content creators. But Trump’s brand of disinformation and conspiracy theories just spread faster on social media than sensible, fact-based campaign proposals.

And to make matters worse, progressive groups have generally been slow to adopt TikTok, while MAGA embraced it much faster. So there are already more established networks for Trump to tap into.

Inequality Media Civic Action is one of the few progressive groups in a position to help balance the scales. Our latest viral video cracked one million views, and overall, our TikTok views are now up 116% since the start of the year with engagements up 187%.

But now’s the time to double-down, and as a grassroots-funded organization, we rely on your donations to power our work. Monthly donations, in particular, make a huge difference.

Will you donate $5 a month to help Inequality Media Civic Action get the truth out and reach the voters we need to win on TikTok?

Click here to start your monthly donation today. It'll make a huge difference in our ongoing efforts to get the truth out on TikTok.

Or, if you can't donate monthly, click here.

Thank you for joining with us,

Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action