Free Republic

-Joe Biden welcomed TikTok stars and social media influencers to the White House for a special briefing. -Kamala Harris hosted a special luncheon for Democratic digital operatives and social media personalities. -The White House is struggling to communicate with young people ahead of the 2024 election. -President Joe Biden hosted a young group of social media influencers at the White House this week as part of his State of the Union address.

In a move of desperation, the UK is planning to pay influencers on TikTok to try to persuade migrants from entering the country illegally in small boats run by people-smuggling gangs in France. In the latest scheme to try to reduce illegal migration, the Home Office has laid out plans to pay local influencers in countries such as Albania, Egypt, Iraq, India, Turkey and Vietnam to make TikTok videos to lay out the “reality of life in the UK for illegal migrants” to counteract messages on the platform from trafficking gangs used to advertise Britain as a destination for prospective...

Sarah Laurel, a harm-reduction professional, sat behind her desk and asked the man who walked into her store how much he’d been paid to be in a viral video she’d recently watched. The man was an active substance user, struggling with addiction, who had probably taken drugs on the streets of Kensington, Philadelphia, earlier that morning. His answer was $50. Sarah laughed and said that was more than usual. Since 2021, Kensington, a low-income neighborhood in North Philadelphia, has been ground zero for a new and dangerous sedative called “tranq”. Also known as “xylazine”, a side-effect of this drug can...

They’re offering bootleg online courses in robbery. The nationwide shoplifting epidemic could soon get a whole lot worse: As if looters weren’t acting brazen enough of late, self-proclaimed “borrowers” are now taking to the platform to teach aspiring criminals how follow suit, per the clips. The hashtag “borrow tip and tricks” has amassed 8.9 billion of views on TikTok amid the uptick in brazen theft, spawned by increasingly lax looting laws and “revolving door” bail reforms. “Today I went to the mall so I’m going to show you what I borrowed,” bragged user @borrowingqueen in one of the stealing tutorials....

Among a certain community of individual investors on TikTok, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s stock trading disclosures are a treasure trove. “Shouts out to Nancy Pelosi, the stock market’s biggest whale,” said user ‘ceowatchlist.’ Another said, “I’ve come to the conclusion that Nancy Pelosi is a psychic,” while adding that she is the “queen of investing.” “She knew,” declared Chris Josephs, analyzing a particular trade in Pelosi’s financial disclosures. “And you would have known if you had followed her portfolio.” Last year Josephs noticed that the trades, actually made by Pelosi’s investor husband and merely disclosed by the Speaker, were performing...