TikTok advised Taoiseach it could assist inform public on Covid-19, information present

The social media platform TikTok reached out to Taoiseach Micheál Martin to say that it would assist the government in sharing information about Covid-19 among its users. The recordings were released following a request for freedom of information.

The video sharing app, which has more than 100 million active users worldwide, is popular with younger people.

Mr. Martin met representatives from TikTok last November before the company posted a job advertisement. After the meeting, Liz Kanter, director of the company’s UK and Irish offices, emailed Mr. Martin saying TikTok would like to work with the Health Service Executive and the government to “support your efforts to provide factual information about Covid -19 or any other problem that would do this would be helpful to Ireland ”.

A TikTok spokesman said the company had worked with government agencies and medical professionals around the world to “educate the public on how to stay safe and informed during these challenging times.”

Free advertising

“To make this education easier, we are proud to provide the authorities in Ireland with free promotional credits so they can share important messages with our community,” he added.

TikTok declined to say how many Irish users are on the platform.

An HSE spokeswoman said she had a combined audience of a million people on her “many social channels”.

“TikTok initially supported our positions free of charge and since October 2020 the HSE has spent around 26,000 euros,” she said.

TikTok is a relatively new advertising platform, but HSE sees it as a “valuable channel,” said the spokeswoman, adding that a “well-planned and well-placed post” on the website can have a huge impact.

The HSE’s first post was viewed more than 1.7 million times and the HSE said it had more than 11.7 million video views on its posts on TikTok.

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