WATCH: Controversy Surrounds AOC's Defense Of TikTok Following Reports Of Donations To THESE Congressional Groups

Written By BlabberBuzz | Tuesday, 28 March 2023 05:15 AM
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WATCH: Controversy Surrounds AOC's Defense Of TikTok Following Reports Of Donations To THESE Congressional Groups

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has recently come under fire for defending Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok following reports of its parent company ByteDance donating six-figure sums to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Foundation and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in December.

According to Fox News, Shou Chew, the CEO of TikTok's parent company, testified before the Congressional House Energy and Commerce Committee Thursday on the degree to which the company puts users' personal data into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. Ocasio-Cortez then took to her TikTok platform, where she has nearly 400,000 followers, to defend the social media giant.

In her defense, Ocasio-Cortez argued that the solution is not to ban the company but to protect Americans from "egregious data harvesting." She further noted that Congress had yet to receive a classified briefing on the national security risks associated with TikTok and that any decision to ban the platform should include information shared with the public. She concluded by saying that the priority should be protecting users from social media companies harvesting and commodifying personal data without consent.

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The congresswoman's comments have been criticized on many fronts. One individual wrote, "Good points but that's not what banning TikTok is about. It's a national security concern just like Huawei. Other countries have either banned it totally or on government devices which is also unprecedented for social media companies. The safety and security of Americans has [to] be a top priority!"

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More criticism came from the Heritage Foundation tech policy expert Jake Denton, American Foreign Policy Council fellow Michael Sobolik, and University of Rochester computer science and economics professor Sar Haribhakti. Denton said, "AOC is a member of the CHCI advisory council. What a coincidence!" while Sobolik asserted that Ocasio-Cortez "echoes TikTok’s talking points and ignores the app’s true threat: CCP-directed disinformation."

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Haribhakti added, "Extremely on brand for her to turn this into a ‘data privacy’ & social media issue, leave out the info control & influence argument, not factor in decades of documented CCP history and present a dumb case in a way that will resonate with her base."

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