MADRID, 26 March (EUROPA PRESS) –
Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went viral this weekend after posting her first video on the TikTok social network in which she’s positioning herself against a possible app ban on official devices.
“This is not only my first TikTok, but also a TikTok about TikTok,” the congressman said in a video posted on the platform. “I think TikTok should be banned? No,” she decided.
Ocasio-Cortez explained that the possible ban would be “unprecedented”, as the United States has never banned the use of a media company on its territory. “And this is an app with over 150 million active users in the US,” he added.
In addition, he pointed out that this measure does not address the core of the problem that large companies like Facebook’s parent company Meta are “allowed to collect a lot of deep personal data” that users are “unaware of”. “almost no oversight.”
On the other hand, Ocasio-Cortez pointed out that the United States is “one of the few developed countries” that has no regulation on citizens’ privacy. In this sense, it has highlighted the policies implemented by the European Union in this area.
“To me, the solution is not to ban a particular company, but to actually protect Americans from this type of horrendous data collection that companies can do without you saying anything.”
These statements, released late on Friday, come after US lawmakers questioned TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew last week, following concerns voiced by country officials about the app’s security.
US officials have repeatedly expressed concerns that the Chinese government may pressure ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, to release information gathered from users for intelligence or disinformation purposes.
The United States, Canada and the European Union have announced that authorities are prohibited from using TikTok on official mobile phones due to concerns about the protection of their users’ data. However, TikTok dismissed such a possibility and judged the decision to be based on “false” and “misconceptions”.
Source: Noti Merica
