Joe Biden criticised for Valentine's meme amid Rafah attack

President Joe Biden joined TikTok earlier this week – despite signing legislation in 2022 prohibiting the use on nearly four million federal government employees' devices due to security concerns.

On Sunday (11 February), the 81-year-old kickstarted his account with several rounds of This or That style questions. The clip amassed over 9.1 million views.

His team has since uploaded a string of other videos including footage including snippets from Donald Trump rallies, a clip of Biden visiting a former school principal's house for dinner – and now a series of Valentine's Day memes.

"I love you almost as much as Trump loves banning abortion," one read, while another said: "I love you almost as much as Trump loves telling Russia to invade Europe."

Despite his efforts to ward in a new younger generation of voters (given that 68 per cent of TikTokers are under the age of 35) – users were simply unamused and attempted to turn Biden's attention to Rafah, a city in Palestine that Israel attacked on Sunday.

The comments were flooded with watermelon emojis to signify solidarity with Palestine, while many more asked: "What about Rafah?"

One Gen Z user wrote: "Can't afford rent & food. Genocides. Rafah bombed – but this you think does something?"

Meanwhile, another quipped: "We don’t care about your memes we care about Rafah."

TikTok · Biden-Harris HQwww.tiktok.com

Roughly 1.5 million Palestinians have moved to the small city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip – with Israel designating Rafah a "safe zone." On Sunday, Israel killed almost 70 people in a raid attack during the Super Bowl.

Many Palestinians in Rafah have expressed their fears they have "nowhere else to go."

Umm al-Abed Fayyad told Al Jazeera that she and her family have been displaced four times.

"We are in a different area every month. The last place we were in was Khan Younis, and now we are in Rafah," she said. When asked about the possibility of an Israeli invasion, Umm al-Abed Fayyad said her family has "nowhere else to go."

"The Israelis are everywhere. Where are we going to go?"

"We have nowhere else to go but to the grave, if they carry out their threats to invade Rafah," Asaad Hassan told the publication.

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