Earlier this week, I came across a story in Politico about how influencers are giving the Biden administration a run for its money as the primary source for student loan information. In other words, if you have student loans and you’re seeking information about what’s going on with the state of repayment or forgiveness you’re not going to a government website, you’re going to TikTok.
Per the report, the White House currently has just one Instagram video on SAVE (Biden’s newest repayment plan). That video has 101,000 views. The Education Department has 55K followers, with only one video about SAVE. The White House and the Education Department are not allowed to use TikTok to reach followers.
Alternatively, the hashtag #studentloans now has more than 1.3 billion views on TikTok.
“If the government is trying to help us be educated on what the next steps are and what it is that we need to do, they are failing pretty epically,” Alex Kassan, who is working to pay down more than $100,000 in student loan debt from her master’s degree in public health, told Politico. “It sort of feels like, to me personally and to a lot of my peers, that we’ve just been left high and dry.” …
Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.
Source: https://www.dailydot.com/passionfruit/influencers-more-powerful-than-biden/