It wasn’t long ago that CNN media reporter Brian Stelter was decrying social media platforms like Facebook who weren’t going full bore against President Trump. But during Sunday’s so-called “Reliable Sources,” Stelter found a social media platform he loved: the China-owned video platform TikTok. According to Stelter, one TikTok user’s plan to “sabotage” or “prank” the Trump campaign by bombarding their website with fake requests to attend Saturday’s rally was something to marvel.
“And it seems that one of the other reasons why there were so many empty seats is a no-show protest. A no-show protest,” he touted. “This all started with a video on TikTok created by Mary Jo Laupp, who is effectively being called a ‘TikTok grandma.’ So, she made a video more than a week ago urging viewers to go to Trump's site, sign up to attend the rally, but pointedly not show up at the rally.”
Adding: “And look, it did seem to work to some degree. We don't know exactly how well but Trump's campaign manager Brad Parscale was out there talking about how many people were signing up.”
While Stelter was clearly enamored with the effectiveness of the viral TikTok video, it was just a few months ago CNN Business (the branch of CNN Stelter’s beat fell under) warned: “TikTok could threaten national security, US lawmakers say.”
According to CNN, there was bipartisan concern that TikTok could be used by the Chinese government to meddle in U.S. elections:
Senators Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton want the US intelligence community to assess the national security risks of TikTok and other Chinese-owned platforms, saying in a statement Thursday that such apps could be used to spy on US citizens or become targets of foreign influence campaigns like the Russian meddling campaign to influence the 2016 US presidential election.
In the past, Stelter and others in the liberal media have rhetorically lit their hair on fire as they shrieked about Russian influence on Facebook and Twitter.
Stelter also spoke with Mary Jo Laupp, the originator of the “prank” plan. In their interview, Laupp discussed how underage minors, along with Korean-Pop music fans, had pounced on the opportunity to influence the election (click “expand”):
STELTER: So, Mary Jo, what happened?
MARY JO LAUPP: I had educated myself on Black Wall Street and understood better why black content creators on various social platforms were really upset and frustrated with the original plan of Juneteenth for a rally, in Tulsa. And I posted a video late Thursday night, the 11th, that was sort of meant to be a frustrated rant. I had 1,000 followers on TikTok at that point. Most of my videos were seen a couple hundred times maybe.
STELTER: And then this went viral on multiple platforms?
LAUPP: Yes. By 7:00 the next morning it had been seen hundreds of times and shared hundreds of time. Then the K-Pop stans jumped on from Twitter. And when they get involved, you know it's getting serious.
“Do you think this is how it's going to be from now on, whenever the President holds a rally there's going to be this attempt to prank him, to troll him, to trick him,” Stelter hypothesized. “So, really a form of protest, and what we've seen as a protest. We don't know how much of an impact it had but it clearly had some impact in Tulsa.”
Imagine how CNN would react if it were users on a website like 4Chan or another site that organized something similar against the Biden campaign. They would be outraged, democracy would be dying in darkness, and perhaps call for some kind of crackdown.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
CNN’s Reliable Sources
June 21, 2020
11:01:26 a.m. Eastern(…)
BRIAN STELTER: And it seems that one of the other reasons why there were so many empty seats is a no-show protest. A no-show protest. This all started with a video on TikTok created by Mary Jo Laupp, who is effectively being called a “TikTok grandma.” So, she made a video more than a week ago urging viewers to go to Trump's site, sign up to attend the rally, but pointedly not show up at the rally.
Her video was viewed tens of thousands – hundreds of thousands of times, and her video let to others, you had younger TikTok uses going on similar videos, K-Pop fans were on there as well trying to sabotage Trump's rally.
And look, it did seem to work to some degree. We don't know exactly how well but Trump's campaign manager Brad Parscale was out there talking about how many people were signing up. Trump was bragging that there were a million people RSVP'ing, they were gathering all this data about people they can use for the campaign. But apparently it was a bunch of kids, a bunch of teenagers signing up as a protest.
Clearly, not everybody showed up in Tulsa. Maybe people heard the huge numbers and said they didn't want to go through the hassle of the crowds. It's unclear exactly what happened. There’s multiple factors. We're going live to Tulsa in a moment. But first, I spoke with Mary Jo Laupp about her role in what's being called a no-show protest.
[Cuts to video]
So, Mary Jo, what happened?
MARY JO LAUPP: I had educated myself on Black Wall Street and understood better why black content creators on various social platforms were really upset and frustrated with the original plan of Juneteenth for a rally, in Tulsa. And I posted a video late Thursday night, the 11th, that was sort of meant to be a frustrated rant. I had 1,000 followers on TikTok at that point. Most of my videos were seen a couple hundred times maybe.
STELTER: And then this went viral on multiple platforms?
LAUPP: Yes. By 7:00 the next morning it had been seen hundreds of times and shared hundreds of time. Then the K-Pop stans jumped on from Twitter. And when the get involved, you know it's getting serious.
STELTER: [Laughter] So, this idea is everybody is going to sign up for tickets, claim they want to attend the rally, but then, of course, not show up. How much of an impact do you think this online prank actually had in Tulsa yesterday?
LAUPP: I honestly can't tell you because this is -- these social media systems are generational. So, when I shared a video, let's say my video was shared 700 times but each of those people would have people sharing their copies of it so that's 700 more people I never saw. So, it's impossible to tell for sure just because of this generational impact that both Twitter and TikTok have.
All I know I was at a birthday party for one of my grandkids and my phone started blowing up with friends wanting to know whether, I had seen what was going on, and I hadn’t been paying attention.
STELTER: Do you think this is how it's going to be from now on, whenever the President holds a rally there's going to be this attempt to prank him, to troll him, to trick him?
LAUPP: And I don't think it was just an issue of pranking him. I think you’ve got a lot kids in the younger generation, 20-year-olds and teens, who are very aware -- they're much more aware and much more self-educated when it comes to things like black culture.
So yes, they're tweeting it now like it was a prank but a lot of messages I got from parents and from their kids were, “I never knew this much about Black Wall Street this is so sad.” And so, they're excited about the impact it had, but I also think it's -- they're becoming much more aware of those marginalized communities and they're learning to speak out for them.
STELTER: Right. So, really a form of protest, and what we've seen as a protest. We don't know how much of an impact it had but it clearly had some impact in Tulsa.
(…)
