Pocan emerges as contrarian in TikTok ban
Says app fight doesn’t address larger issue of data security
WASHINGTON – As the push to ban TikTok receives growing bipartisan backing, one Wisconsin Democrat has emerged as among the popular video sharing app's sole public defenders on Capitol Hill.
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan on Wednesday joined Democratic U.S. Reps. Jamaal Bowman of New York and Robert Garcia of California in pushing back on efforts to ban or force a sale of the Chinese-owned phone app amid national security concerns, arguing that targeting a single platform doesn't address the larger issue of data security and claiming the effort could be considered xenophobic.
“There's probably valid concerns when it comes to social media disinformation and all the rest,” Pocan told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel before a press conference with about 20 TikTok creators outside the U.S. Capitol. “But to say that a single platform is the problem largely because it's Chinese-owned honestly, I think, borders more on xenophobia than addressing that core issue.”
The comments make Pocan among the first lawmakers in Congress to publicly come to TikTok's defense as concerns over whether China can use the app to surveille and influence users rise in Washington. And they put him at odds with a large bipartisan group of lawmakers that include Wisconsin's Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, as well as the Biden Administration, which has threatened to ban TikTok if the app's Beijing-based owners do not sell their stakes in the company.
Pocan on Wednesday argued that Americanowned platforms like Facebook and Twitter are also susceptible to foreign disinformation, noting Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election, and suggested countries like Russia and China “can still buy ads” on platforms to promote their messages.
The three progressive lawmakers said the U.S. needs to make sure user data for all social media platforms isn't collected, shared and sold by individuals and corporations.
“We should have a much broader conversation about all data and all social media platforms,” said Pocan, who has an official TikTok account with just under 2,000 followers.
Still, opponents of the app on both sides of the aisle, as well as some in the intelligence community, have argued the Chinese Communist Party could use the platform to control data collection and promote propaganda by using TikTok’s algorithm to influence what users see. TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, have pushed back on those warnings and maintained that they have never shared user information with the Chinese communist government. But lawmakers like Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, chairman of a select committee on the Chinese Communist Party and a lead supporter of banning TikTok in the U.S., have pointed to a Chinese law that could be used to compel the app to share information with the government.
Shou Zi Chew, TikTok’s CEO, is expected to tell the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on Thursday that the app has the “ability to brighten people’s lives” and has “empowered millions of Americans to express their voices in their own authentic way.”
TikTok is currently transferring the app’s U.S. user data to the American software company Oracle and this month began deleting protected U.S. user data stored on non-Oracle servers, according to Chew’s written testimony released by the House committee. That effort, known as Project Texas, will make sure there is “no way” the Chinese government can access the data, Chew wrote.
“TikTok has never shared, or received a request to share, U.S. user data with the Chinese government,” Chew will tell the committee on Thursday. “Nor would TikTok honor such a request if one were ever made.”
“Let me state this unequivocally,” Chew will say, “ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country.”
Gallagher has introduced legislation to ban the app nationwide, and Baldwin earlier this month joined a push to give the government broader authority to regulate and potentially ban communications technology and social media platforms like TikTok.
The Biden Administration last week called on the app’s owners to sell their stake in TikTok or face a ban and recently announced it will remove the app from federal government devices. In Wisconsin, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers banned the app on most governmentowned devices.
More than 150 million people in the U.S. use TikTok.
On Wednesday, the three Democratic lawmakers presented TikTok as a way to share positive ideas and grow businesses. They were flanked by TikTok users who held signs with messages like, “My small business thrives on TikTok” and “TikTok helped me grow my business.”
Bowman, the New York Democrat, said TikTik poses the “same threat” as popular American-owned platforms that harvest user data and suggested there needs to be a way to allow people to “opt out of having their data shared with third parties and corporations and governments that use their data for God knows what.”
“Let’s talk about federal legislation to ensure the safety and security of everyone who uses social media,” Bowman said. “And part of that is related to banning data brokers and stopping them from selling our data to the highest bidder.”
News of the press conference drew a quick rebuke from a number of Republicans.
Tennessee U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn in a tweet before the press conference called TikTok a national security threat and said: “Any member of Congress defending this CCP-owned company is aiding the Chinese Communist Party.”
Missouri U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley called the three Democrats “apologists for Communist China.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, for his part, told reporters Wednesday there are “serious security concerns with TikTok” but did not endorse an outright ban of the app.
“We’re going to have to look at this very, very carefully,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said.
And as Pocan pushed back on bipartisan legislation aimed at addressing social media and technological concerns from foreign countries like China and Russia, he told the Journal Sentinel that he believes much of the current friction with China is “smoke, not fire.”
“I think it’s used by people to stir some very xenophobic conversations about China and who want us to put more into our defense budget because of China and all the rest,” Pocan said of the focus on TikTok. “And I don’t think any of that is based on anything.”