Meet the young people, some not old enough to vote, thrust into the spotlight of the election debate.
At 15, Tolu isn’t old enough to vote in this election. But, one night from her bedroom in London, she posted a video on TikTok criticising politicians’ anti-immigration rhetoric. She woke up to find it had reached tens of thousands of people, more than many posts from the major political parties.Miles away in Somerset, with political views on the other side of the spectrum, another 16-year-old, Will, was having a similar experience.
Several users I spoke to said they had been recommended content about Reform UK - such as this clip posted by Will Giving young people a platform can encourage them to voice their opinions and take part in the democratic process - and lots of these profiles are sharing reliable updates and hot takes. But with great virality comes great responsibility - some other accounts like this have shared misleading claims, as well as finding themselves a target for threats and abuse.
His social media feeds used to recommend videos about football, as well as influencer Andrew Tate - who is facing a trial in Romania over rape and trafficking charges. There was some political content in between too, he says, about former US President Donald Trump and some European right-wing politicians.
Within days his posts were reaching tens of thousands of views - equal to many of those from official party accounts.What happened to Alex, Tolu and Will is symptomatic of how social media sites have changed since the last general election. TikTok, Instagram and X all work by recommending content to users’ “For You” pages or feeds - often from people they don’t follow or know, allowing individuals to go viral instantly, without building up a big following first.
While Alex was already sympathetic to Reform UK before its content was pushed into his feed, I spoke to several other users in their 20s - such as 28-year-old Pete who lives in West Yorkshire - who had shown no interest in Reform UK previously, but whose feeds had also become dominated by political content featuring Reform UK talking about immigration.
These viral posts were pushed to our young Undercover Voter profiles in six battleground constituencies The ability to influence other voters, though, comes with risk. Unlike media outlets, which are subject to regulation, there is little oversight of these posts which can reach millions of people. Another shared a conspiracy theory falsely suggesting that a milkshake thrown at Nigel Farage while he was out campaigning had actually been staged by his own political party.
Some of these accidental influencers tell me they are putting lots of effort into researching their own posts and ensuring they are accurate. Several also say, though, that they are finding it hard to work out what to share, because they are unsure what to trust on their own feeds.
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