Biden’s new TikTok account flooded with comments about Gaza

President Joe Biden launched a TikTok account this week to connect with young voters, and the pro-Palestinian protests that have beset his recent in-person events are now following him online.

The TikTok account @bidenhq has posted nine videos since its launch Sunday. Many of those comment sections are flooded with notes about Gaza, airstrikes on Rafah and Palestinians who’ve been caught in the crossfire of the Israel-Hamas war.

The comments are a digital manifestation of what the Biden campaign has been facing on the campaign trail for months now. At a reproductive rights rally in Manassas, Virginia, in late January, the president was interrupted by protesters calling for a cease-fire over a dozen times.

Since then, pro-Palestinian demonstrators have confronted Biden at a campaign stop in Michigan, chanting “Genocide Joe.” And protesters calling for a cease-fire in Gaza have waited outside Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s home to have their gripes heard.

Protesters and commenters don’t represent the full measure of the American electorate — but they do represent a real current of displeasure with Biden regarding his policy and rhetoric on Israel and Gaza right now. The latest NBC News poll of registered voters showed that only 15% of respondents aged 18-34 approve of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The number was even smaller among young voters who use TikTok, one potential reason the Biden campaign has chosen to engage on the platform.

For Jeannie Niusulu, 43, a stay-at-home mother of eight from Aurora, Colorado, online protest is her way of communicating her frustration to the Biden administration.

“Thoughts on Rafa?” Niusulu wrote on a @bidenhq video on Monday, in the hope of getting the