There’s cause for alarm with TikTok — but is it enough to justify building America’s own Great Firewall?
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has some thoughts about the potential TikTok ban — namely that it doesn’t address the broader social media privacy concerns at hand:
I think a lot of this is putting the cart before the horse because our first priority should be in protecting your ability to exist without social media companies harvesting and commodifying every single piece of data about you.
And we bring you the best parts, including Grapefruit Theories and WiFi Problems and The One About The Eyes. We also talk about Bard and ChatGPT… but mostly The One About The Eyes. It’s the Vergecast! This is what hearings do to us.
It’s all been like this. Help.
We’ve been in recess, but we’re back with a series of questions about why TikTok hasn’t removed more content about drugs, including people selling drugs and a Wall Street Journal article about adult content showing up in children’s feeds. Chew’s line is that no company can moderate perfectly — but it’s not going over well.
Rep. Darren Soto asks whether TikTok would consider spinning off from ByteDance, and Chew makes a jab it’s taken a surprising amount of time for him to reach. “I don’t think ownership is the issue here,” he says. “With a lot of respect, American social companies don’t have a good track record with data privacy and user security. Just look at Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, for one example.”
Neal Dunn (who has just compared TikTok to fentanyl and cancer) enters a 2022 Forbes article about TikTok surveillance into the record — casting doubt on Chew’s claims that it’s not a spying risk.
Over the last hour of the TikTok hearing, lawmaker questions have strayed away from TikTok’s alleged relationship with the Chinese government. Republicans and Democrats have been pulling a few TikTok videos portraying violent themes, including a post that appeared to threaten gun violence against the committee and its chairwoman.
Chair Rodgers did not allow Chew to respond to the threatening post, but he was able to comment on concerns lawmakers raised over the app’s ability to promote harmful challenges to young users.
“We have spent a lot of time adopting measures protecting teenagers,” Chew said. “Many of those are first for the social media industry.”
