These 9 Members of Congress Are Defending TikTok on TikTok

TikTok’s highest-profile lawmaker user is also one of its most recent. New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, better known as AOC, created an account last month. Her very first video was a video about TikTok.

Speaking from her office in D.C., Ocasio-Cortez plainly said she opposed a ban, which she said, “just doesn’t feel right.”

Ocasio-Cortez said the ban would be “unprecedented” in American history. She also explained how a ban would avoid addressing the larger issue of rampant social media data harvesting carried out by Meta and other U.S. companies.

“This case needs to be made to the public,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “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 without you and without your consent.”

Since then, Ocasio-Cortez has released just one other video which shows her arguing on the House floor opposing a bill called H.R.1 which she argued would amount to a handout to large oil companies. Still, those two posts alone were enough to attract nearly half a million (485, 800) followers.

Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar uploaded her first official TikTok more than two years ago, which makes her one of the earliest adopters in Congress. Since then Omar has uploaded more than 40 videos and attracted a sizable 247,000 followers. Aside from the occasional dance video, many of Omar’s posts highlight her travelling to meet with communities and advocate in favor of legislation.

Despite her prolific presence on the app, Omar had remained mostly silent on the ban issue until late last month. In a statement, Omar said the ban being proposed sounds a whole lot like censorship and doesn’t actually address legitimate data privacy concerns. Concerns about TikTok being used to spread propaganda or misinformation, Omar said, also apply to US social media companies.

“Aside from raising legitimate first amendment concerns, this is bad policy,” Omar said. “We should create actual standards and regulations around data harvesting and privacy violations across social media companies—like many countries around the world have already done—not ban particular platforms we don’t like.”

New York representative Jamaal Bowman has stood out as arguably the most vocal supporter of TikTok to date. The representative regularly speaks out in defense of the app and even helped organize and speak at a rally in D.C. last month where TikTok creators protested lawmaker efforts to ban the app. That protest also just happened to be bankrolled in part by TikTok.

Bowman has skin in the games. The lawmaker is a prolific poster who’s managed to amass 203,400 followers and over 2.5 million likes. That’s nearly as many followers as he has on Twitter, which he’s had for a longer period of time. His content ranges from serious (videos of him chanting at rallies and committee hearings) to more silly (showing users how he shaves his bald head). In one of the cringier videos, Bowman can be seen rapping in a hoodie while Florida representative Maxwell Frost plays drums. Bowman also spends a fair share of his time on TikTok calling out Republican lawmakers like Georgie Rep. and election denier Marjorie Taylor Greene.

“My question is: Why the hysteria and the panic and the targeting of TikTok?” Bowman said during the rally last month. “As we know, Republicans, in particular, have been sounding the alarm, creating a red scare around China.”

Missouri representative Cori Bush, who has a little over 25,000 followers on her official TikTok account, released a statement in late March forcefully opposing grown calls for a national ban. Bush accused lawmakers of unfairly singling out TikTok and said she, nor any other Congressmember, have received any classified briefing providing concrete evidence of a Chinese government security threat.

“What I do know is that banning a social media platform used by 150 million people in our country would be an unprecedented and disproportionate step given the lack of proper justification,” Bush said.

Bush, who’s come to be associated with a group of progressive lawmakers called “The Squad,” can be seen dancing alongside some of them in one of her videos. Most of Bush’s 13 posted TikTok are clips of her speaking during congressional hearings, but she also dips her toes into reaction videos and Nick Cage memes.

Speaking with MSNBC last month, Garcia said the app “speaks to the next generation,” and is an opportunity for small businesses to thrive. As a consumer himself, Garica is still pretty fresh to the app. Since June 2022, the representative has posted 11 times from his official account and attracted 2,450 followers. Like other lawmakers, Garcia’s content features brief clips of him taking shots at Republicans, clips of him speaking before Congress, and a handful of attempts at jumping on the tail end of meme trends. One of those videos shows Garcia fake paddling a boat through a lake.

“As someone who is a consumer of TikTok I’ve seen folks build personal brands, start businesses, so I think before we get to a banning approach we need to work on the real privacy concerns that are there,” Garcia said.

Garica recently told the Associated Press lawmakers might be less likely to demand bans for the app if they actually used it and understood how it works.

“It gets hard to understand if you’re not actually on it,” Garcia said. “And at the end of the day, a lot of TikTok is harmless people dancing and funny videos.”

Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, who publicly opposes a TikTok ban, has posted on TikTok 33 times since November 2022 and has amassed 17,300 followers. Large, cumbersome maps of Pennsylvania and cans of beer make regular appearances in Casey’s videos, as does his de facto opening catchphrase “Hi neighbor.” Casey also spends a good chunk of time on the app taking jabs at Republicans, particularly Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

Wisconsin representative Mark Pocan, who was one of the few lawmakers to speak out in TikTok’s defense at a rally held in front of the capitol building last month, is on the app but posts infrequently. The representative has made thirteen videos since November and only has 6,619 followers. Pocan thankfully avoids hopping on the trendy meme bandwagon like many of his colleagues and instead tend to speak to the camera about issues with soothing and slightly creepy piano music playing in the background. He also manages to pull off some decent magic tricks.

In defending TikTok, Pocan says calls for bans are a distraction meant to avoid grappling with larger data privacy harms carried out by US platforms. He also has a hard time taking some lawmakers’ exuberant concerts about potential Chinese government spying seriously.

“If you’ve ever watched members of Congress talk about issues like this, it’s cringeworthy,” Pocan said during the anti-TikTok ban rally that was posted on the platform. “It’s TikTok-worthy content to watch people who are above the average age of most people using TikTok trying to explain it. They’ve never done it. They’ve never done it.”

If TikTok is banned, Minnesota representative Dean Phillips will have to find a new place to carry on with all his dance moves. The representative, who has just 1,446 followers and around 25 posts can regularly be caught lightly dancing and lip-synching to songs alongside what looks like his interns and staffers. On the more serious side, Phillips also uses the platform to highlight some of his top policy issues and encourage get-out-the-vote drives.

When speaking to the Associated Press about a potential ban, Phillips said he could sympathize with some lawmawkrs’ security concerns, but has nonetheless become an indispensable tool.

“I’m sensitive to the ban and recognize some of the security implications,” Phillips said. “But there is no more robust and expeditious way to reach young people in the United States of America than TikTok.”

Florida representative Maxwell Frost, aged 27, is one of the youngest lawmakers in Congress and also one of the fastest-growing lawmaker accounts on TikTok. Frost, who has publicly opposed a unilateral ban, has posted just 12 videos since joining earlier this year but has already attracted more than 35,000 followers. The majority of Frost’s videos take a serious and somber tone, with the exception of one where he plays the drums with students from the Osceola School of the Arts and another where he gets in a drawn-out argument over steamed vs. toasted bagels.

In an interview with Politico last week, Frost said he worried a TikTok ban could have unintended downstream consequences, particularly for small businesses that have come to rely on outreach and brand exposure.

“I’m not for unilaterally banning TikTok,” First said. “There are so many small businesses and content creators, especially young folks, across the country that use the platform for their business. I want to ensure we are doing everything we can to support those content creators.”