With the average TikTok user in Australia spending about of those users over the voting age of 18, it's no surprise TikTok is the latest frontier where political parties are looking to boost their campaigns.
Both major parties are leaning into the platform, using popular sounds and trends to make videos in ways they never have before.
On the Labor Party account, one video after the first leader's debate branded Opposition leader Anthony Albanese as "Alpha Albo" in a clip with him walking away from the camera in slow-motion. It's one of the trending "motivational"-type videos that has been doing the rounds on the platform.
On the Liberal Party's official page, they joined in on the how-to videos, with a youthful voice narrating the recipe for an "Albanese smoothie", telling viewers they will need "three cups of lies, a pinch of policy".
Meanwhile, on the Greens Party page, a "sexy" Shrek filter is edited to dance over Parliament House.
Daniel Angus, a professor of Digital Communication at Queensland University of Technology, says there’s always interest in new platforms within election campaigns, particularly the first election after the platform becomes mainstream.
"I certainly remember the first elections where Instagram was a new thing, or even going back as far as the early days of Facebook and Twitter," Professor Angus told The Feed.
"Generally, the broad trend is that those who adopt these new media forms earlier tend to have a slight advantage with them."
While more insight may come after the election cycle has wrapped up, TikTok is already playing a role.
A sounding board for campaign ideas
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With such a predominantly young audience, Professor Angus predicts most parties would be using TikTok as a sounding board to see what messages resonate with young voters.
"On the platform, they'll be asking, 'what’s the general mood? What themes are they reacting to?' With this information, they’ll be crafting their campaign and messages for young Australians," Professor Angus said.
Last week, 214,000 people registered to vote through the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) - the biggest single-day enrolment in Australia's history. The AEC has also reported an influx of young, new voters.
Paying influencers and micro-influencers
Unlike Facebook, TikTok doesn't allow paid political advertising on its platform - but that doesn't mean it isn't happening.
Last November, Crikey reporter and TikToker Cam Wilson said he had been approached by a US-based marketing agency to create "anti-Scott Morrison" videos on behalf of the Labor Party. It is unclear whether others had been approached and accepted the offer.
Earlier this month the ABC also reported that a union had paid at least one influencer to produce anti-Liberal content for the platform. While paying influencers for political content is newer in Australia, influencers were being paid back in the 2020 US presidential election.
Screenshots from the Labor Party's TikTok account.
One of the unique characteristics of TikTok is that it can help the “micro-influencer” (someone with a small following who is sponsored) and those without a following at all to 'go viral', said Dr Francesco Bailo, an expert on the use of digital and social media in politics at the University of Technology in Sydney.
Dr Bailo said this widens the possibilities of who lobby groups or politicians could be reaching out to.
"It means parties might not necessarily be contacting big names, instead they're contacting an army of smaller ones in the hope that one goes viral," he said.
He said from a platform perspective this is harder to police as you're no longer monitoring a few "big names".
While political ads must disclose who authorised them, Professor Angus told The Feed the middle person in the "influencer" transaction muddies the waters.
“It gets murky if you’ve got a political party that’s paid a creative agency to engage influencers to create political content, it gets really hard to trace that through," said Professor Angus.
“I worry about the ability for platforms like this to kind of 'wash' the money through three hands.
“It’s still an ad.”
Separately, the algorithm that is capable of making a video go viral in hours also acts as a cheap way to campaign to young voters, said Dr Bailo.
“[Politicians] can basically move from being an unknown candidate to being someone that is known just because of some trending video."
TikTok and the AEC have collaborated, but there's still 'minimal transparency'
In March, Tiktok announced it had collaborated with the AEC to launch an in-app federal election guide. The guide said it will highlight the importance of enrolling to vote,
"Of course, TikTok isn't the go-to app for breaking news or politics, and on our app," the platform wrote in a statement with the announcement.
"Still, we know TikTok is a home where Australians express themselves – and with that in mind, we're focused on supporting our users with education and authoritative information on important public issues."
As a whole, Professor Angus told The Feed, TikTok is not a very "observable" platform when it comes to tracking accounts, especially those from politicians.
While official pages on Facebook can be tracked in separate apps to see what is being posted by candidates - which can help with transparency and easily quashing misinformation - it's not as easy to monitor politicians on TikTok.
"It's a massive problem because we fundamentally lack the tools of observability."