If you haven’t heard, there’s some controversy over the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok and its presence in the United States. Congress is, in fact, currently trying to decide if it should be banned throughout the country.
And we just found a whole new reason for New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez not to want it banned – 150,000 reasons, actually.
According to financial records from both ByteDance Inc., TikTok’s Beijing-owned parent company, and the US Congress, a sizable donation was made to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute recently. And AOC is a key advisory council member for that group.
A little fishy, huh?
Well, that’s just part of it.
Another questionable move is that up until recently, AOC hasn’t seemingly had any interest in TikTok at all. In fact, she hasn’t even had an account.
And for a younger member of Congress who’s all about social media, that’s saying something. If you know much about the New Yorker, it’s that she’s made quite a name for herself by blasting her “democratic socialist” ideas not just in the halls of Congress but all over the internet.
Her usual soapbox is Instagram, where she has plenty of followers who will happily shill for her time and time again.
So it is interesting that it wasn’t until last week, when the possibility of a TikTok ban became quite real, that she even signed up for an account.
And as soon as she did have an active account, she wasted no time in posting her first video, which focused solely on her belief that the platform should be allowed to corrupt the youth of America’s mind with little to no accountability.
She asked, “Do I believe TikTok should be banned? No.” She explained herself further by saying, “The United States has never before banned a social media company from existence, from operating in our borders. And this is an app that has over 150 million Americans on it.”
To be clear, we’ve never had an app exist in America before that had such a profound and evil pull on its users before, either. And the fact that 150 million Americans are using it, primarily those between the ages of 10 and 17, should tell you just how dangerous it could be.
But, at the moment, that’s not really the point.
Instead, it’s that a charismatic member of Congress who never even touched the platform before is now wholly backing it suddenly.
It wouldn’t take much imagination to wonder if the $150,000 TikTok’s parent company donated to the CHCI back in December has much to do with it.
It’s also peculiar that in the days since AOC’s TikTok arrival and her first post, there have been no other posts made. She made the one video stating her case and then signed off. We’re still waiting for her second act.
Naturally, it has drawn no shortage of questions as to whether she actually believes in TikTok’s innocence and supposed right to exist within US borders or not. I mean, if she was that loyal to the platform, wouldn’t she always be on it like she is on Instagram?
Now, as Fox News points out, ByteDance didn’t just donate to CHCI. The same amount was also given to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. But I don’t see any members of that group suddenly shilling for a company that they never paid any mind to before now.
Of course, I don’t know what else to expect from a woman who claims to hate the rich and elite and yet manages to elicit an invitation to the MET Gala in a dress that costs more than most of us make in three months.
The hypocrisy is real.
