From WNYC Studios. I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Friday, March 24th.

We'll start today with two social media stories in the news, centering perhaps a different take than what's mostly been in the

news over the last 24 hours. Heads up that we will name check China, Utah, and Westchester

County on this. What you probably heard is that there was a long contentious hearing in the House

of Representatives yesterday with the CEO of TikTok getting grilled for hours on whether

China is using the China-based company to spy on Americans. And maybe they are. But actually,

I don't think Congress ever established that yesterday. We'll talk to a reporter who's following

this in a minute and see if we can find out. But here's a dissenting take. It's 60 seconds of

New York Congressman Jamal Bowman of Westchester County speaking yesterday on MSNBC as this hearing was going on.

You know, Republicans have been beating the anti-China drum since even before they took control

of the House of Representatives.

And this is more governing through fear mongering without actual evidence.

I'm a sitting member of Congress.

We have never received one briefing explaining the dangers of TikTok and how TikTok are a national security risk.

So this is a rush to judgment without having a larger conversation around the harms of social media in general.

Our data right now on Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Instagram, our data right now

is available for purchase, for sale, for trading, and it is currently being shared with

foreign governments and foreign companies without our consent, without our knowledge. So let's

talk about all social media companies,

what the harms are, and then write federal legislation to deal with those issues instead of

scapegoating TikTok. So to Congressman Bowman, as you heard, his congressional colleagues are missing

the forest for the trees so they can say, China, China, China. And here's the other story.

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