Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) stated over the weekend that she doesn’t help a complete ban on the Chinese language social media app TikTok, claiming it might be “unprecedented.”
“Do I believe TikTok should be banned? No. Why should TikTok not be banned? First of all, I think it’s important to discuss how unprecedented of a move this would be,” she acknowledged on the weekend following a congressional listening to on the social media app.
“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,” the congresswoman added.
Ocasio-Cortez additionally appeared to dismiss the “egregious amount of data harvesting” carried out by the Chinese language-backed app, following the corporate’s CEO not with the ability to totally assure that the Chinese language authorities was not accessing TikTok consumer information. Ocasio-Cortez urged that as an alternative of banning particular person corporations like TikTok, Congress ought to discover a strategy to defend People from information harvesting.
Over the weekend, the congresswoman created a TikTok account that already has practically 400,000 followers. She additionally posted her first TikTok video, the place she addressed among the similar issues she had about banning the social media platform in america, whereas there was a rising bipartisan effort to ban the Chinese language social media app over nationwide safety issues.
@aocinthehouse Some ideas on TikTok…
♬ unique sound – aocinthehouse
The congresswoman’s statements come after the favored Chinese language social media app has already been banned on United States authorities gadgets — when a provision was added to the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending invoice President Joe Biden signed into regulation — for being a possible nationwide safety drawback. Quite a few governors have additionally taken comparable motion on the state degree.
There may be presently laws within the U.S. Senate — backed by the Biden administration — that will empower the secretary of Commerce to “ban or prohibit” international expertise from six adversary nations from getting into america. This is able to finally embody TikTok’s China-based father or mother firm, ByteDance. Nevertheless, the bipartisan laws is not TikTok’s first time coping with the U.S. trying to remove the social media app. In 2020, then-President Donald Trump’s administration tried to ban TikTok, which resulted within the Chinese language social media app’s father or mother firm divesting the platform to an American firm.
Final week, the Home Vitality and Commerce Committee carried out a listening to with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. Members of Congress grilled him concerning the numerous issues lawmakers have concerning the social media app. In a single occasion, Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH) was capable of get Chew to confess that staff of TikTok’s father or mother firm presently have entry to U.S. consumer information.
“Do any ByteDance employees in China, including engineers, currently have access to U.S. user data?” Latta requested, to which Chew answered, “After Project Texas is done, the answer is no. Today, there is still some data that we need to delete.”
Watch TikTok CEO Not Deny that TikTok’s Father or mother Firm Bytedance Has Entry to People’ Information:
Home Committee on Vitality and Commerce
Throughout one other occasion, following Latta’s query, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) grilled Chew over ByteDance having entry to the information of thousands and thousands of People utilizing the favored app. Cammack pointedly requested Chew about entry to consumer information, and he ultimately responded, “Some user data is public data, congresswoman, which means everybody can search for it on the internet.”
Watch: Rep. Cammack Grills TikTok CEO on Chinese language Communist Get together’s Entry to People’ Information:
U.S. Home of Representatives
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart Information. Write to him at [email protected] or observe him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
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