What happened to all the parliamentary TikTok accounts? There was a moment when every MP and their dog was muddling through lip-sync videos and working out how to use video captions, despite Parliament banning the app on government phones in March last year. But politicos’ TikTok careers have recently been grinding to a halt.
Even Matt Hancock, who memorably gave a rendition of the Ken song from Barbie on the platform, hasn’t posted in a month. Tory chair Richard Holden, science minister Michelle Donelan and former deputy PM Thérèse Coffey all seem to have thrown in the towel. Maybe they were put off by the numbers. After Coffey’s debut video in December raked in 28 likes, she never posted again. Meanwhile Miriam Cates’ last post in January about banning smartphones for kids clocked up 22 likes.
@theresecoffey Southwold Christmas lights switch on by Charles Mackesy. Great evening including Wrentham Band, Stormy Stan and Santa
♬ original sound - Therese Coffey
Ex-MP Nigel Farage has more luck, regularly posting explainer videos about Snoop Dogg and the Premier League to his 500,000 followers.
Strangely the most senior minister still soldiering on is Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, despite all of those national security warnings about possible Chinese influence over the app. But it seems like most of his colleagues have given up on cracking the algorithm.
More repatriation woes for British Museum
The British Museum is limiting the comments on its Instagram posts after a slew of demands to return a pair of statues to Easter Island. The museum has had the Moai statues since the 19th century and Easter Islanders have long been calling for their repatriation. Recently Mike Milfort, a Chilean influencer, implored his followers to join in the calls for their return, leading to hundreds of comments, mainly in Spanish, across the British Museum’s Instagram posts. A spokesperson for the Museum said that “comments are set to follower only but people are still able to express their views as they wish”. No bad thing for their follower count!
