Snapchat wants to usher in a new class of political leaders

I knew next to nothing about Congress—how it worked or the major differences between the political parties. It wasn’t until college when I fully began to grasp the details of Washington, D.C. It was a different era, one where a lot of young people like me—white, middle class—were able to live with their heads in the sand as to what was happening in the world. 

Today’s youth? Not so much. A survey by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics in March found that 36% of young Americans classify themselves as politically active. By comparison, only 24% did in 2009 when I was a high school sophomore. 

And now, Snapchat wants to help the kids run for office.

The social networking app has debuted a new feature that provides users with information about how to run for everything from state attorney general to U.S. Representative to the local sanitary district board. Snapchat says it is doing so with the hope of helping create “a more equitable, and reflective, democracy that includes all Americans, including young people.” And while many of Snapchat’s users surely are not even old enough to run in some of those elections, its pitch is already piquing interest. Nearly 2 million Snapchat users have already explored the feature since its launch last week, though that is a far cry from a campaign announcement, Axios reported Sunday.

The feature’s debut comes as federal lawmakers once again scrutinize the tech industry (thanks to Facebook). Admittedly, it’s the same group that, during a number of Congressional hearings over the years, has proven to be far from tech savvy.

Back in 2018, then Sen. Orrin Hatch was mocked over a viral clip in which the Utah Republican seemed to be unaware how Facebook made money. More recently, Sen. Richard Blumenthal found himself in a similar situation, with a clip that showed the Connecticut Democrat asking Facebook’s global head of safety if the social network would commit to ending finsta, the short-hand term for Instagram accounts young users set up under fake names so their parents can’t monitor them.

Saturday Night Live even took aim at the phenomenon this weekend. In the cold open, cast member Heidi Gardner, playing Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, fielded questions on whether the 2,000 friends Sen. Diane Feinstein, played by Cecily Strong, has on Facebook was a “good” number and how Aidy Bryan’s Sen. Ted Cruz could turn off that feature “where everyone comments on all your posts that you’re bad and that they hate you.”

Having listened to the entire hearing—that is, the one two weeks ago with Blumenthal and Facebook’s safety chief, Antigone Davis—I agree with The Washington Post’s Will Oremus, who wrote last week about whether Congress is up for cracking down on Facebook. “The truth, it turns out, is more nuanced than ‘old man yells at cloud’—and more hopeful than ‘Congress is too clueless to regulate Big Tech,” Oremus said.

But the concern about whether Congress is well suited to draft tech laws persists. Technology evolves quickly, raising more new questions for lawmakers. So, the fact that Snapchat, which says it reaches 90% of 13-to-24 years olds in the U.S., would try to help build a new political class that is not only familiar with its app but also avid users of it makes perfect sense.

Now if we could only get that whole election-misinformation-spreading-on-social-media situation fixed.  

Declan Harty
@declanharty
[email protected]

NEWSWORTHY

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Facebook says take a break.  After weeks of blowback over the influence its social media sites have on children, Facebook  has begun providing more details about upcoming features it will introduce in an effort to address some—though far from all—of the concerns. Among them are a message that tells teens on Instagram  to take a break from the app. The company is also introducing "nudges" to try and steer those users toward potentially less harmful or negative content. 

Apple’s not letting anyone take a bite out of the App Store, yet.  On Friday, Apple notified the courts that it will appeal a September decision that the iPhone maker must let developers guide their customers online, rather than to the App Store, to complete in-app purchases. And as part of the appeal, Apple has asked for the Dec. 9 deadline under which it must amend the App Store's rules to be delayed, according to Bloomberg, which reported that its in-house analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence estimate the changes could reduce revenues for Apple by as much as $4 billion. 

KKR's new CEOs. Private equity giant KKR  cofounders and co-CEOs Henry Kravis  and George Roberts  are stepping down. In a seismic leadership change, the company, whose portfolio includes companies like ByteDance, Epic Games, and Gibson, has named Joe Bae  and Scott Nuttall  as its newest co-CEOs. Both Kravis and Roberts will stay on as executive co-chairmen of the board. 

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Wait, what ever happened to D.C.’s infatuation with TikTok? While Congress is taking a closer look at Facebook’s Instagram, and Snapchat tries to help inspire the next era of lawmakers, TikTok keeps chugging along. It wasn’t long ago that an outright ban of the app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, was on the table because of national security concerns by the Trump administration. Now, it seems that all has been forgiven, Evelyn Douek, a Harvard University doctoral student and senior research fellow at Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, wrote in The Atlantic. But should it be?

From the article:

How TikTok manages to skirt the limelight is as mysterious as its recommendation algorithm. Maybe Facebook has a corporate culture and organizational structure that make it uniquely worrisome. Perhaps politicians forget about TikTok because they don’t use it much themselves (yet). TikTok may get less attention precisely because its content moderation is less transparent; it’s hard to write and complain about decisions you’re unaware of. TikTok’s success in branding itself as unserious—it just wants to “bring joy”rather than “connect people”—helps deflect serious criticism. But none of these is a great reason for ignoring such a wildly popular and rapidly growing app when thinking about the effects of social media and how to regulate it.

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