The possible ban of the popular short video app TikTok in the US has sparked a debate, with Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chiming in on the platform itself. In her first and only video on TikTok, the New York congresswoman spoke out against a ban, stating that no social media platform has ever been banned in the US before. Instead, she believes the real issue is the lack of data protection regulations in the country. Ocasio-Cortez criticized the unrestricted data collection by large social media firms and sees the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as a model.
The US is one of the few developed nations in the world that lacks significant data protection laws, according to Ocasio-Cortez. Rather than banning individual companies, the congresswoman advocates for protecting Americans from “egregious data collection”. Ocasio-Cortez has a large online following and her TikTok post over the weekend garnered over three million views in just 36 hours.
In contrast to Ocasio-Cortez, her fellow New York Democrat Jamaal Bowman warned against “xenophobic anti-China rhetoric” in the debate. TikTok is the only online platform from outside the US that has been successful in the West, with more than a billion users. On Thursday, TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew faced criticism from Democrats and Republicans during a five-hour hearing in the US Congress. They expressed doubts about the previous steps taken to isolate US data from the Chinese parent company, Bytedance.
TikTok emphasized that they do not see themselves as a subsidiary of a Chinese company and reject all allegations against them. As the debate on TikTok’s future in the US continues, Ocasio-Cortez’s stance on data protection remains an important topic for consideration.
