Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) showed support for TikTok amid a possible ban of the social media platform by posting her first TikTok.
In the video, Ocasio-Cortez announces that not only is it her first time publishing a TikTok, but it’s also “TikTok about Tiktok.”
The progressive Democrat gets to her feelings about the social media app quickly, asking whether she believes TikTok should be banned and answering in the negative.
Ocasio-Cortez explains that banning TikTok, which has quickly become the most popular video-sharing app, would be an “unprecedented move,” adding that the unprecedented nature of the move should be discussed.
The progressive Democrat highlighted that the United States had never banned a social media company “from operating in our borders,” noting that banning Tiktok would be far-reaching as the app has “150 million Americans on it.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s post came after lawmakers grilled TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, about how the app would be addressing concerns around security.
Those concerns have been shared by both Democrats and Republicans, who expressed equal criticism over the app’s Chinese-based owner ByteDance.
During Chew’s testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday (March 23), lawmakers raised concerns about the app’s links to the Chinese Communist Party and how that was a threat to national security. Issues around the spread of misinformation among minors and data privacy were also addressed.
Ocasio-Cortez mentioned the concerns about data privacy in her TikTok, explaining Congress wants to ban the app because of the “egregious amount of data harvesting,” which she asserted “doesn’t really address the core of the issue.”
In defense of TikTok, Ocasio-Cortez mentioned how other apps also gather “troves of deeply personal data” without a user’s knowledge or regulation, noting the U.S. was one of the developing nations without significant data privacy laws, adding that the answer to concerns about TikTok wasn’t banning the app but introducing more stringent privacy laws.
