Ocasio-Cortez has some explaining to do.
In her first video on TikTok last Saturday, Democrat Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez expressed her opposition to the idea of banning the popular Communist Chinese social media app.
In transcript provided by Business Insider, Ocasio-Cortez shocked everyone and said, “This is not only my first TikTok, but it is a TikTok about TikTok. Do I believe TikTok should be banned? No.”
Ocasio-Cortez added, “I think it’s important to discuss how unprecedented of a move this would be. The United States has never before banned a social media company from existence, from operating in our borders. And this is an app that has over 150 million Americans on it.”
Approximately 3 million views and 545,000 likes have been garnered by her video, which was posted two days subsequent to the congressional testimony of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. During the hearing, numerous politicians seemed uninterested in hearing complete responses from the executive, as the proceedings rapidly devolved into a barrage of binary “yes or no” questions.
In 2020, the discussion regarding TikTok’s potential impact on national security began, triggered by the Trump administration’s endeavor to compel a sale of the Chinese-owned application.
The possibility of prohibiting TikTok is also based on apprehensions regarding data privacy, the proliferation of misinformation, and the protection of minors.
“They say because of this egregious amount of data harvesting, we should ban this app. However, that doesn’t really address the core of the issue,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
The Democratic representative from New York highlighted that prominent social media enterprises such as Meta accumulate vast quantities of profoundly personal information. She underscored the fact that the United States lacks “substantial data or privacy safeguard statutes,” and went on to cite the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, a law governing data privacy.
“So to me, the solution here is not to ban an individual company — but to actually protect Americans from this kind of egregious data harvesting that companies can do without your significant ability to say no,” Ocasio-Cortez went on to say.
The congresswoman stated that topics that present a substantial danger to national security generally prompt a classified briefing for the Congress, which, in this case, had not taken place. She questioned, “So why are we considering a ban on such a crucial issue without being informed about it at all? It doesn’t seem appropriate to me.”