On March 25, 2023, the New York Post published an article titled AOC ripped for TikTok video arguing against banning Chinese-owned app. “AOC” here refers to Ms. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, United States Congresswoman for New York’s 14th Congressional District. While it should come as no surprise to regular readers that I am generally not on Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s side of the aisle, I have (inductive) reason to doubt that she will incur the sort of political cost that the New York Post imagines for taking up her phone in defense of TikTok (which should, to be sure, be banned. However, what struck me about the article was neither the New York Post’s over-heated headline nor Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s undoubtedly sober and well-reasoned take on TikTok (I have not watched the video, mind you, I reviewed ProxiTok but I do not actually use it). Instead it was this:
‘Do I believe TikTok should be banned? No,’ the lefty New York congresswoman says in her first-ever video on the controversial app, posted early Saturday.
I never thought about whether Ms. Ocasio-Cortez used TikTok. However, had you asked me, I would have likely guessed that she had been using TikTok for a while.