Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez discussed calls to ban TikTok when it debuted on the app. The New York Democrat said the bipartisan push to ban TikTok in the US “doesn’t feel right to me”. AOC said America needs stronger data protection and privacy laws rather than a TikTok ban. Something is loading.
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said TikTok shouldn’t be banned in her first video on the app on Saturday.
The New York Democrat began her video by saying, “This is not only my first TikTok, but this is a TikTok on TikTok. Do I believe TikTok should be banned? No.”
“I think it’s important to discuss how unprecedented this would be. The United States has never before banned a social media company from existing, operating within our borders,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “And it’s an app that has over 150 million Americans on it.”
His video, which has had around 3 million views and 545,000 likes, came two days after TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before Congress. Several politicians seemed uninterested in hearing the executive’s full answers as the hearing quickly devolved into a bloodbath of “yes or no” questions.
The debate around TikTok’s potential threat to national security began in 2020 when the Trump administration tried to force the sale of the Chinese-owned app.
A possible TikTok ban also centers on concerns about data privacy, the spread of misinformation and the safety of minors.
“They’re saying that because of this massive amount of data being collected, we should ban this app. However, that doesn’t really address the core of the problem,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
The New York Democrat noted that big social media companies like Meta also collect “treasuries of deeply personal data.” She pointed out that the United States does not have “significant data protection or privacy laws”, before mentioning the European Union’s data privacy law, known as the Regulation. general on data protection.
“So for me, the solution here is not to ban individual business — it’s to actually protect Americans from this kind of blatant data collection that companies can do without your meaningful ability to say no,” Ocasio said. – Cortez.
She said issues that pose a significant national security risk typically trigger a classified briefing for Congress, which has not happened. “So why would we propose a ban on such an important issue without being aware of it at all? It just doesn’t seem fair to me.”
Ocasio-Cortez concluded, “I think a lot of it is about putting the cart before the horse, because our first priority should be protecting your ability to exist without social media companies harvesting and marketing every piece of data about you, without you, and without your consent.”