“TikTok could definitely sway an election,” says social media expert and former Conservative Party campaign strategist Sean Topham. He would know. During the last election campaign in 2019, Topham was described as a “digital mastermind” after his team at creative agency Topham Guerin came up with the idea to rename the Conservative Party’s press Twitter account to “Fact Check UK” and use it to dispute claims and campaign promises made by Jeremy Corbyn.
Many didn’t initially realise it was the Conservatives behind the account, so took Fact Check UK’s word as unbiased gospel. Regardless of the moral element — which sparked plenty of debate — it was a smart and completely novel technique, and clearly the work of a person born into the internet age.
