White House is briefing social media creators on Russia and Ukraine
By Betsy Klein, CNN
The Biden administration is doing outreach on Ukraine and Russia to popular digital creators from platforms like TikTok, seeking to message to the highly influential group and reach a broader — and younger — audience.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki and officials from the National Security Council held a briefing Thursday with approximately 30 creators who have been covering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on their social media channels, including TikTok, YouTube and Twitter, a White House official confirmed to CNN. The briefing was first reported by the Washington Post.
“The creators were given an overview of the latest in Ukraine, as well as where the US sees the conflict moving toward,” the official said, adding that officials also took questions from attendees.
“The material was similar to that given in traditional briefing calls to reporters over the last week,” the official said.
The official pointed to the “millions of views” that these creators have produced to explain the latest situation in Ukraine over the past few weeks.
It is “one of the fundamental ways that Americans (particularly young Americans) are coming to see the war evolve in real time,” the official said.
It is also a strategy to combat the scores of misinformation led by the Kremlin on social media.
“As the Russian government has begun paying TikTok creators to produce pro-Kremlin propaganda, briefings like these are a critical tool to ensure that creators can have their questions answered and can provide accurate information to their followers,” the official said.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
The-CNN-Wire
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