Dutch parties embrace TikTok (again) ahead of the October election

Dutch politicians are re-discovering social media app TikTok in a bid to reach young voters ahead of the parliamentary election scheduled for 29 October. The video application, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, was previously banned by several parties due to security concerns.

A round-up by Euronews among the biggest parties shows that Dutch political parties were not that present on the platform during the last election in November 2023, but most of them have set up an account now. The one missing is the far-right Freedom Party (PVV) of Geert Wilders – which is leading in the latest opinion polls.

The app – which has over 200 million monthly users in Europe – played a central role in recent elections in Romania, where the first round of the vote was invalidated after intelligence reports allegedly showed Russian involvement in voter influence through social media to support the then-relatively unknown nationalist candidate Călin Georgescu.

Because of Georgescu’s popularity on TikTok, the European Commission in December began a probe into the role of the platform during the campaign to check whether it breached the EU rules in relation to risk assessment and election integrity.

Security concerns

A study published last year by the Dutch Commissariaat voor de Media, a government office tasked to oversee compliance with media laws, said that just under 20% of youngsters between 18 and 24 – who are often also first time voters – use TikTok as their primary source of news.

The center-right Dutch party VVD – previously chaired by now-NATO boss Mark Rutte – said in a recent statement that its return to the platform is important to reach young voters. It closed its account on the app in 2023 but launched it again this year.

“We consider the presence on the ever-growing platform TikTok to be essential to engage in conversation about our views with digital users,” a statement said. The party itself does not have a TikTok account, but its leader Dilan Yesilgöz, has.

“We keep a close eye on the privacy and security updates about the platform,” the statement said, adding that for TikTok use, an “empty” phone will be used to avoid data sharing and security risks.

The same applies to liberal party D66, which left TikTok but said it returned last year to counter-balance the presence of far-right parties.

The global discussion around the safety of TikTok started in 2023 linked to fears of data transfers to China, via its parent company ByteDance. As a result, the European Commission, European Parliament and Council of the EU all banned TikTok on EU officials' professional devices.

They pointed to risks to the institutions’ cybersecurity infrastructure, privacy of messaging and data transfers - accusing the Chinese government of gathering sensitive and critical data.

The Irish data protection authority found earlier this year that TikTok violated the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for failing to protect personal data of EU users when transferring it to China.

TikTok said in a statement at the time that it has never received a request for European user data from the Chinese authorities, and has never provided European user data to them.

Comparison

The far-right Freedom Party (PVV) of Geert Wilders, leading in the opinion polls, does not seem to have a TikTok account, but it does have a lot of fan accounts.

Euronews looked at the party presences as well as their leaders’ engagement on the platform.

The biggest success on TikTok is for the right-wing farmers' party BBB with some 115.500 users, followed by the nationalist Forum for Democracy (FvD) with 91.200 users. BBB was born in 2019 during farmers’ protests against the Dutch government's plan to radically curb agriculture emissions.

In third place is the newly established GroenLinks-PvdA, the center-left bloc that was formed of the Greens and Labour parties, with 59.100 users.

When it comes to leaders, FvD’s new head Lidewij de Vos has some 39.400 users, followed by Rob Jetten of the liberal D66 party (21.000) and Jimmy Dijk of the far-left SP (18.500).

The popularity on TikTok does not really reflect the latest opinion polls. According to a poll from early October, Wilders’ far-right PPV is set to become the biggest party with 30 seats projected, of the 150-seat parliament.

Second is GroenLinks-PvdA with 27 seats, followed by the center-right Christian-Democrats (CDA) with 23 seats.

The VVD, D66 and the far-right Ja21 follow with 12 to 13 seats.

The projected result mimics the last election of 2023, where the PVV became the biggest party, followed by the center-left bloc. The government collapsed in June following a conflict over migration plans between the four coalition partners.