Social media platform TikTok contacted Taoiseach Micheál Martin to say it would support the Government in sharing information about Covid-19 among its users, records released following a Freedom of Information request show.

The video-sharing app – which says it has more than 100 million active users worldwide – is popular with younger people.

Mr Martin met TikTok representatives last November in advance of a jobs announcement by the company. After the meeting a director of the company’s UK and Ireland branch Liz Kanter emailed Mr Martin saying TikTok would be happy to work with the Health Service Executive and Government “to support your efforts to share factual information about Covid-19 or any other issue that would be helpful to Ireland”.

Hospital Report

A TikTok spokesman said the company has been working with authorities and medical professionals around the world “to inform the public about how to stay safe and informed during these challenging times”.

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Free advertising

“To facilitate that education, we’re proud to support the authorities in Ireland with free advertising credits, enabling them to share important messages with our community,” he added.

TikTok declined to say how many Irish users are on the platform.

A HSE spokeswoman said it has a combined audience of one million people across its “many social channels”.

“TikTok initially supported our posts free of charge and, since October 2020, the HSE has spent approximately €26,000,” she said.

TikTok is a relatively new advertising platform but the HSE sees it as a “valuable channel”, the spokeswoman said, adding that one “well-planned and placed post” on the site can have a huge impact.

The HSE’s first post was seen more than 1.7 million times and the HSE said it has had more than 11.7 million video views across its posts on TikTok.