But he won’t dance
Habeck soon on TikTok
By Marko Schlichting
May 1, 2024, 4:44 a.m
Robert Habeck shut down his Twitter and Facebook accounts years ago. Now the Federal Minister of Economics wants to resume his social media activities, as he reveals at Lanz.
He won’t sing sea shanties like the Wellerman song. He won’t dance either. But he has a message. He wants to spread it. Especially for kids. And that’s why Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck from the Greens will soon explain the world on TikTok. The minister announced this on Tuesday evening on the ZDF talk show “Markus Lanz”.
“It’s a balancing act. That’s why I thought about it a lot,” says Habeck. Important data from the ministry would not go to China, he had clarified that in advance. Also with the company. Habeck promises that he will not use a work cell phone for his TikTok appearances. Rather, he is reacting to a study that was published two weeks ago. This shows that many young people only get media and political information via the network from China. “Then my decision was: I’ll go where they are, knowing that this is a gray area that I would have liked to avoid. I wanted to go where a generation that is difficult to reach otherwise is currently.”
The problem is well known: TikTok is a Chinese social network. But the concept is catching on worldwide. TikTok is particularly hyped among young people under 30. While it used to be a network where young people in particular produced singing and dancing chart hits, it now has everything you can imagine in terms of information. The AfD was the first German party to recognize this. The right-wing populists are using TikTok, among other things, to distribute their propaganda to young people in Germany. More and more politicians from other parties are now taking advantage of the trend. Health Minister Lauterbach recently celebrated his first TikTok post, and the Chancellor is also avidly using the network. Of course Robert Habeck shouldn’t be missing. For him, the country that controls the network is less important. In this way, Habeck hopes to be able to explain his politics to a generation that has lost media like ARD and ZDF and who rarely read a daily newspaper.
Habeck left X
On the other hand, Habeck can no longer be found on X. It belongs to US entrepreneur Elon Musk, who acquired it when it was still Twitter. Musk gave the network the new name, supposedly because he likes the letter X. Habeck left Twitter five years ago, he says. “The generation that was young ten years ago is on Twitter. Now the students are on TikTok. That has nothing to do with Chinese authorship,” says Habeck.
Journalist Michael Bröcker from Table Media finds Habeck’s decision a little incomprehensible. Young people can also be found on X, he says at Lanz. For example, he uses In any case, he’s not 15 anymore.
Marie-Christine Ostermann has a tip for Habeck. She is president of the lobby association “The Family Businesses”. “Go on LinkedIn,” she advises the minister. After all, the network advertises with more than 800 million users. “The family entrepreneurs” have almost 9,500 followers there, and their youth page “Teen Startup” is also quite well received.
What is now most important to the minister is that the established parties have largely kept this space – TikTok – free. Others speak more directly about a missed trend. Anyway: “Now we have to try to fight him back.”
A ban on TikTok, as is currently being discussed in the USA, is out of the question for Habeck. You can check whether certain social media threaten public safety and order. If this is the case, they can be restricted or banned. “But we can’t ban them because we don’t like the majority of likes and tweeds there,” says Habeck. “As we’re a long way from banning TikTok, the real political question you’re asking yourself is: Do you stay away from it because you don’t like it or because you feel so young that you’re only on Twitter and That has to be enough, or do we go there? And the political pragmatic answer: In the end, you have to go where there are people who would otherwise only be informed one-sidedly.”