Social media is not a new battleground in Pakistan for political parties to unleash their hatred for each other. Earlier they used Twitter and now their verbal 'war' has shifted to TikTok in which the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf's (PTI) hashtag, "Imported hukoomat namanzoor" is trending.
On TikTok, the hashtag "Imported hukoomat namanzoor" has reached a viewership of 933 million, whereas, on Twitter, the same hashtag crossed over 100 million in the last week of April, Dawn newspaper reported.
TikTok is the world's largest video-sharing platform that has not been taken seriously by the mainstream political parties until PTI supporters took it by storm.
After the hashtag went viral on TikTok, Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz held a meeting with her close aide, MPA Sania Ashiq and the social media team of her party.
PML-N tweeted, "A delegation of PML-N tiktokers met PMLN leader Maryam Nawaz at Jati Umra."
Social media expert Muhammad Imran believes that the massive popularity gained by Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari during his 'Awami March' rally in Islamabad and the overwhelming response on TikTok to the recent activities of Imran Khan have surprised their opponents, reported Dawn.
"The PTI should be credited with making the PML-N and PPP shift their focus to social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter," Imran said, adding, "But these platforms have a higher degree of restrictions even on political activities, therefore TikTok is a good option to share anything and everything for the PPP and PTI," he said.
He further added that on mainstream media, PPP's 'Awami March' got limited coverage while on TikTok, the hashtag #longmarch recorded 83.2 million views and #PPPlongmarch 32 million, as reported by Dawn.
Taking to Twitter, PTI's social media team head, Arsalan Khalid expressed his surprise and said, "We were mainly focused on the urban class and some people shared some funny old videos that would further our party agenda, but it triggered enthusiasm among TikTokers, pushing the views to millions."
He further said that it was an accidental discovery on TikTok and for that, his team cannot take too much credit.
( With inputs from ANI )
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