Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has claimed that ‘teens on TikTok flooded the Trump campaign with fake ticket reservations’ leaving thousands of seats empty at the President’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday night
She cheered reports that teenagers and Korean pop music fans using the Chinese-owned app TikTok, had inflated RSVP numbers by signing up for the rally.
Breitbart reports: TikTok, which is popular among teenagers around the world, is considered such a security threat by the U.S. military that soldiers and sailors are banned from using it on government-issued phones. In October, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) asked the U.S. intelligence community to investigate the app.
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The Wall Street Journal (WSJ)also published a report on Wednesday that suggested that TikTok was boosting the views of certain videos where users flattered Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping.
Nonetheless, Ocasio-Cortez bragged on Twitter Saturday night that “teens” and “KPop allies” used the app to purposely inflate Trump’s rally RSVPs. “KPop” is a reference to South Korean pop music. It is not clear who these alleged music fans or “allies” are.
TikTok is owned by Beijing-based company Bytedance Ltd. National security laws passed in recent years in China allow for the Communist-controlled authoritarian government to access any data that Chinese companies obtain.
WSJ reported that Cotton and Schumer were concerned that the Chinese government was censoring content, and media reports have alleged that the app was removing videos that were “politically sensitive” in China.
Two people interviewed by the WSJ claimed that videos where they praised Xi had an uptick in views.
One, a 23-year-old Texas songwriter named TJ Asaday, said his account skyrocketed from 2,000 fans to over 90,000 after he made a 13-second video in April calling Xi “my president.”
“I’d never seen any type of growth on my page until I made that joking video,” he said.
On Sunday, CNN interviewed a grandmother named Mary Jo Laupp who claimed that she started the campaign for fake RSVPs on TikTok witjh a video late Thursday night, and it was viral by Friday morning. She is a former Pete Buttigieg campaign volunteer.
Niamh Harris
Yes that’s what happened and apparently Twitter was also allowing people to set up the rally coup on its site too .