AOC goes viral hours after posting a 'TikTok about TikTok' explaining  potential 'unprecedented' national ban

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) posted her first TikTok Saturday explaining why she believes the global social media app should not be banned, Axios reports.

This comes after TikTok Chief Executive Officer, Shou Zi Chew, was grilled earlier this week by U.S. lawmakers in a congressional hearing concerning the app's surveillance of millions of American users.

In the video, the congresswoman consolidates her points into a couple of minutes, providing context around the issue, educating users on why lawmakers are pushing for the ban, and offering her thoughts on, what she believes, would be a more sensible solution.

READ MORE: How a TikTok ban could actually benefit China: WaPo editorial board

"Do I believe TikTok should be banned? No," she says.

"This case needs to be made to the public," she continues. "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."

She emphasizes the importance, in her opinion, of discussing "how unprecedented of a move this would be."

The congresswoman says, "The U.S. 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."

READ MORE: 'Misreading the room by a mile': TikTok CEO defends app amid allegations that it spied on journalists

Instead of banning "an individual company," she asserts the solution is "to actually protect Americans from this kind of egregious data harvesting that companies can do without your significant ability to say no."

Ocasio Cortez explains a ban "doesn't necessarily address the core of the issue, which is the fact that major social media companies are allowed to collect troves of deeply personal data about you that you don't know about without any significant regulation whatsoever," noting "the U.S. is one of the only developed nations in the world that has no significant data or privacy protection laws on the books."

Axios reports:

Critics have highlighted the fact that Chinese law requires China's companies to share information with the government.

TikTok has repeatedly said it operates independently and works with Oracle to ensure its algorithms and content moderation models aren't manipulated by Chinese authorities.

Watch the video below or at this link.

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READ MORE: House approves ban of TikTok on government devices

Axios' full report is available at this link.