On the trail of the DFB team
German Olympic team cooperates with controversial Tiktok
April 24, 2024, 10:54 a.m
The national soccer team is leading the way, the team for the Olympic Games and the Paralympics is following suit: German sport is presenting its partnership with Tiktok. The social media platform is extremely controversial.
The online platform Tiktok and the German team for the Olympic Games and Paralympics in Paris this year are entering into a partnership. The aim is to get young people excited about these major events, as Tiktok announced. According to the information, fans will be able to follow, among other things, live streams of the medal celebrations and personal insights behind the scenes and into everyday Olympic life. The cooperation also includes the 2026 Winter Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo as well as the Paralympics.
More than 142,000 users currently follow Team Germany’s Tiktok channel. “The interest in exclusive content is there and together with Tiktok’s expertise we will certainly take the channel to the next level,” said Claudia Wagner, Managing Director of Deutsche Sport Marketing GmbH. The company works with Tiktok on behalf of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) and the German Disabled Sports Association (DBS).
The Olympic team follows the men’s national team of the German Football Association (DFB). The collaboration between the DFB and the online platform was announced in March and includes, among other things, the home European Championships in the summer. Individual athletes have also been active on Tiktok for a long time – and successful. The following of the volleyball player Tobias Krick, for example, includes more than five million people.
USA plans ban from app stores
Tiktok is particularly popular among young people. However, the platform is considered controversial. In the USA – as in Europe – there are concerns that the app could be used to collect information about users by Chinese authorities or for political influence. Governments of several countries and the EU Commission banned the use of Tiktok on work cell phones. On Wednesday night, the US Senate passed a law that could lead to its banishment from the American app stores if the app continues to belong to the current owner Bytedance a year later.
Bytedance is viewed by critics as a Chinese company. However, the company emphasizes that it is 60 percent owned by Western investors and has its headquarters in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean. However, Bytedance has a large headquarters in Beijing, and the Chinese founders play an important role.