Tick Tock TikTok?

Plus, Five Guys and Kellogg's face backlash over pricing [View this email in your browser]( Tick Tock TikTok? Have the House of Representatives paved the way for a potential TikTok ban in the US? To catch you up, the [House advanced a bill today]( that would force TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance to divest itself and sell the social media app, and public interest to the coverage is quickly rising. Brought about by the stated concern that the Chinese government could use TikTok to gain access to American’s data or spread misinformation, the bill would give ByteDance just over five months to sell the app if enacted. If not sold, it would become illegal for app stores to distribute it in the US. Today is easily the highest day of media and public interest since the bill was proposed last week, with 4,071 articles written and over 47k engagements to those articles since this morning. Even more notable, though, is how much attention the issue is driving across social media. The top post in the last week has come from [RapTV on Instagram]( with a post about TikTok asking its users to oppose the potential bill receiving 315k engagements. In the last few hours, publishers including the [Daily Mail]( and [ABC News]( have taken to TikTok itself to report on the bill passing, collectively earning more than 120k engagements to their videos.  The bill now moves on to the Senate, and if it passes there it would go to the White House for President Biden’s signature. Five Guys and Kellogg’s face backlash over pricing There have been two food price stories of note in the last two weeks that have stirred up some public backlash. The first involved [Kellogg's CEO]( Pilnick saying consumers should eat cereal for dinner to save money. The second involved people complaining about the [cost of a Five Guys burger](. Kellogg’s was written about nearly twice as much as Five Guys, but despite having more media coverage, Five Guys was by far the more engaging of the two stories for the public. This engagement pattern was true on most platforms, with more engagement for Five Guys on Facebook, X, and prominent TikTok accounts. X is where the controversy first went viral, with the [original post]( earning 82.6k engagements itself. Fast-food chains and grocery stores have frequently found themselves in the headlines this year as consumers are continuously grappling with price increases, but they’re also pushing back. Whether that’s directly calling out a restaurant such as Five Guys, or [shifting their shopping habits]( at stores, it’s an issue that isn’t going away, and CEOs should be careful of how they advise and communicate with the public. 2024 ELECTION REPORT Our first report looking at early coverage of the US election [Read report→]( WHAT’S MOVING THE NEEDLE IN THE UK ELECTION? A snapshot of coverage of the UK election in 2024 [Read blog →]( REPORT: INFLUENCE THROUGH INSIGHT How comms leaders are bringing wider understanding to management decisions [Read report →]( CASE STUDY: ENERGY COMPANY How an energy company saved $200k with NewsWhip’s predictive alerts and digests [Read blog →]( [Twitter icon]( [Website icon]( [LinkedIn icon]( Copyright (C) 2024 NewsWhip. All rights reserved. You're receiving this email because you opted in for the NewsWhip blog newsletter and updates. Our mailing address is: NewsWhip 42 Pearse Street Dublin, D02 YX88 Ireland Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe](