AOC says TikTok ban is ‘unprecedented’, doesn’t support
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said over the weekend that she doesn’t support a total ban on Chinese social media app TikTok, saying it would be “unprecedented.”
“Do I believe TikTok should be banned? No. Why shouldn’t TikTok be banned? First of all, I think it’s important to discuss how unprecedented this would be,’ she said the weekend following a congressional hearing on the social media app.
“The United States has never before banned a social media company from existing, operating within our borders. And this is an app that has over 150 million Americans on it,” the MP added. .
Ocasio-Cortez also appeared to dismiss the “enormous amount of data collection” performed by the China-backed app, as the company’s CEO was unable to fully guarantee that the Chinese government was not accessing data. TikTok user data. Ocasio-Cortez suggested that instead of banning individual companies like TikTok, Congress should find a way to protect Americans from data harvesting.
Over the weekend, the MP created a TikTok account which already has nearly 400,000 followers. She also posted her first TikTok video, where she addressed some of the same concerns she had about the social media platform being banned in the US, amid a growing bipartisan effort to Ban Chinese social media app for national security reasons.
@aocinthehouse Some thoughts on TikTok…
♬ original sound – aocinthehouse
The MP’s statements come after the popular Chinese social media app was previously banned on US government devices – when a provision was added to the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill that the president Joe Biden enacted – to be a potential national security issue. Many governors have also taken similar steps at the state level.
There is currently legislation in the US Senate – backed by the Biden administration – that would empower the Secretary of Commerce to “deny or deny” the entry into the United States of foreign technology from six adversarial countries. This would eventually include China-based TikTok parent company ByteDance. However, the bipartisan legislation is not the first time TikTok has dealt with the United States trying to take down the social media app. In 2020, then-President Donald Trump’s administration attempted to ban TikTok, leading the Chinese social media app’s parent company to spin off the platform to an American company.
Last week, the House’s Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. Members of Congress questioned him about lawmakers’ various concerns about the social media app. In one instance, Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH) was able to get Chew to admit that employees of TikTok’s parent company currently have access to US user data.
“Do any ByteDance employees in China, including engineers, currently have access to US user data?” Latta asked, to which Chew replied, “Once Project Texas is done, the answer is no. Today there is still data that we need to delete.
Watch TikTok’s CEO not deny that TikTok’s parent company, Bytedance, has access to Americans’ data:
House Committee on Energy and Commerce
In another instance, following Latta’s question, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) grilled Chew on ByteDance having access to the data of millions of Americans using the popular app. Cammack pointedly asked Chew about access to user data, and he finally replied, “Some user data is public data, Madam Congress, which means anyone can look it up on the Internet.”
Watch: Rep. Cammack Grills, CEO of TikTok, on the Chinese Communist Party’s access to Americans’ data:
United States House of Representatives
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
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