Bundestag on Tikkok: Klöckner wants to go to the “digital counter”

The Bundestag expands its social media activities and will also use the Tikok platform in the future. “As a German Bundestag, we want to go on Tikkok. If this medium is available, it would be pretty nonsensical to not inform about our work and present the parliament,” said Bundestag president Julia Klöckner of the German Press Agency in Berlin.

Tikkok is not unproblematic in many ways. “But it is not forbidden. And on this platform, this digital counter are people who do not find out anywhere else,” said the CDU politician. Very few people still have a printed newspaper at home today. “If you ask where they find out, that’s Tikkok for young people.”

Short videos are mainly published on Tikok. They are mostly entertaining, but there are also informative variants – and many with false information.

The CDU politician admitted very extreme opinions there. But: “If we want to stabilize democracy, we have to be there and make an offer.”

The Bundestag is already present on the platforms Instagram, YouTube, Whatsapp, X (formerly Twitter), Mastodon, Bluesky and LinkedIn. “The aim is to offer the citizens of trustworthy sources with the channels, in which they can provide comprehensive and serious about parliamentary events, the work of the Bundestag and the institution,” says Parliament website.

Against Tikkok, however, there are considerable security concerns and the accusation lack of data protection. The operator is the company bytedance, which has a Chinese founder and a large headquarters in Beijing. From a western point of view, it is a Chinese company, even if Bytedance itself emphasizes that 60 percent of Western investors are in the possession. There is concern that the app can be misused by Chinese authorities to collect information about their users.

The Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BFDI), Louisa Specht-Remenschneider, also points out data protection concerns. For the federal government’s public bodies, the urgent recommendation of your house is to not use Tikkok on official devices.

The platform for politics is interesting because it offers access to a huge audience. According to the BFDI, it was actively used in Germany alone in Germany last year by around 21 million people. There were more than 1.5 billion users worldwide per month.

This first recognized the AfD, which is present on Tikkok like no other party. But the federal government is now also using the platform. In April last year she started her first TikTok channel at @teambundenkanzler. Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) answers on the platform, among other things, questions via video – from Ernst (“Where is the citizen relieved? How about income tax reduction?) To cheerful (” Please do a driver’s license price brake “).

Klöckner receives encouragement from the former Vice President of the Bundestag, Wolfgang Kubicki. “A modern and much viewed public relations work by the Bundestag president on social media is certainly not to the detriment of the German Bundestag,” said the deputy FDP chairman of the German Press Agency. Klöckner explains a lot about the parliamentary processes and the organizational around it. “Ultimately, this creates acceptance for the entire political apparatus. I think it’s great.”