You’ve probably heard rumblings about the possibility of a nation-wide ban on TikTok.
Alexandria recently shared her thoughts on data privacy and why she does not believe that TikTok should be banned.
Before we share her reasons below, do you agree that TikTok should not be banned? Take our short poll here to share your thoughts.
Take our TikTok Poll →
Here’s a quick recap of why Alexandria believes that TikTok should NOT be banned.
- It would be unprecedented: The United States has never before banned a social media company from operating in its borders. This app has over 150 million Americans on it.
- A ban does not address the core issue: Some of the arguments about banning TikTok are around Chinese surveillance and the utilization of data that is tracked on U.S. citizens. They say because of this data harvesting, we should ban the app. However, major social media companies like Facebook are allowed to collect troves of deeply personal data about you that you don’t know about — without any significant regulation once so ever. The U.S. is the only developed nation in the world that has no significant data or privacy protection laws on the books.
- We need real protection: The solution is not to ban a specific company, but to actually protect Americans from this kind of egregious data harvesting by companies without your ability to say no.
- Putting the cart before the horse: Congress has not received a classified briefing around the allegations of the national security risks regarding TikTok. Why would we be proposing a ban around such a significant issue without being clued in on this at all?
- This case needs to be made to the public: We are a government for and by the people. If we want to make a decision as significant as banning TikTok and someone believes that there’s information about why such a decision would be justified, that information should be shared with the public as well.
No matter what, our first priority should be protecting your ability to exist without social media companies harvesting and commodifying every single piece of data about you without your consent.
We want to know if you agree with Alexandria. Please take our short TikTok poll here to share your thoughts so we can get a pulse on how our movement feels on this topic.
In solidarity,
Team AOC