Simon Harris, Ireland's Youngest Taoiseach, Takes Advantage Of TikTok To Achieve Young Voters

Simon Harris, who will be the youngest Taoiseach in Ireland (photo: x @FitzgeraldFrncs)

JAKARTA - Simon Harris, who will be the youngest Taoiseach in Ireland after being elected last month, took advantage of his favorite platform, TikTok, to convey a message to his followers. In the video he uploaded, showing the yellow writing 'THANK YOU', Harris told 95,000 of his followers about his journey from a teenager full of opinion and problematic because of his lack of education assistance for his autistic brother.

Harris, who is sometimes referred to as "TikTok Taoiseach", is one of a number of European politicians embracing Chinese company-owned social media platforms, despite concerns about security related to user data privacy.

By approaching elections in Europe next June, mainstream politicians are worried that they will lose their voter base to suburban parties who have successfully taken advantage of TikTok's short video format.

However, TikTok is getting more and more attention in the West because of concerns that user data from this app, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance companies, could fall into the hands of the Chinese government.

In Germany, state security agencies have warned about the use of the app due to concerns that data could be shared with the Chinese government or used to influence users.

TikTok claims that these security alerts are unfounded and that they are not gathering more information than any other app. They even opened up sites to store European user data in Dublin and hired independent security companies to monitor data streams.

Simon Harris, 37, is one of the first to use TikTok in March 2021, by uploading various videos ranging from a 60-second budget summary to a musical setting to the moment he makes a cup of tea while watching football.

Another politician in Europe, including French President Emmanuel Macron, who has had 4 million followers since joining TikTok in 2020.

In Germany, senior ministers who have just opened TikTok accounts, such as Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, believe it is important not to leave social media to extreme parties.

In addition to security concerns, the presence of politicians on TikTok shows their efforts to remain relevant among young voters who are increasingly likely to use social media platforms to gain political information.

TikTok, although banned in some government circles, is increasingly difficult to ignore as more and more people turn to this platform to get news, especially among people aged 18 to 24 years.