Who Influences the Influencers?
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 15 August 2022
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
During his presidency, Donald Trump demonstrated the power that social media can have in politics. Now, influencers are taking money to spread messages from across the spectrum. Unlike political ads in older media, though, influencers don’t have to disclose who is paying them—or even that they’re being paid at all.
Guest: Ben Wofford, writer based at Stanford Law School, contributor to Wired.
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Transcript
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| 0:35.9 | If he's being totally honest, Ben Wofford isn't really on the internet. He doesn't have |
| 0:42.3 | a TikTok or an Instagram. Okay, so you're a digital Nian, but even Ben has found it hard |
| 0:50.3 | to miss the way politicians and the people who work with them have started to cultivate |
| 0:55.6 | the people who use the apps he so acidiously avoids. I think it was Jen Socky, the former |
| 1:02.9 | White House press secretary, in one case that comes to mind that films some clips with |
| 1:08.7 | a TikTok star. One sec, democracy's calling. See you daddy, bye. Hi, my name is Cooper, |
| 1:15.2 | and this is a day in my life as a White House intern. I think his name is Benny Drama. |
| 1:20.3 | Yeah, he was pretending to be the White House intern. Right, right, right, exactly. Hey, Jenny, |
| 1:26.1 | I booked you an Aloe Point, my love. Yeah, I didn't tell you to do that. It's called |
| 1:29.3 | initiative. This influencer wasn't just at the White House to have a little fun, though |
| 1:36.3 | he did that. He was there to sell the president's agenda, spreading the word about COVID vaccines. |
| 1:42.5 | We need to get shots in the arms of every single American. I'm heading to a haircut. And |
| 1:48.5 | that's not like Benny Drama was the last influencer who made his way to the West Wing. |
| 1:53.6 | Back in the spring, the White House became a punchline after they invited social media |
| 1:58.0 | content creators to a special briefing on the war in Ukraine. |
| 2:02.7 | People are saying this is the first war fought on TikTok, which is tough for me because |
... |
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