When Rep. Jeff Jackson (D-NC) apologized for doing his job, he perfectly illustrated what happens when you allow social media to dominate your life and self-worth.
Jackson voted in favor of a bill that would require TikTok to be sold by the Chinese company ByteDance in order to continue operating in the United States. TikTok in its current iteration functions as a Chinese spyware app and a misinformation tool targeting young, influential Americans, as ByteDance is aligned with the Chinese Communist Party and is required by Chinese law to hand over any data for which the CCP asks.
In other words, Jackson cast a sensible vote to cut CCP access to Americans’ data and the CCP’s ability to influence young Americans with misinformation, radical content, and dangerous “challenges.” But Jackson, who is running for attorney general in North Carolina, later issued a groveling apology to his TikTok audience (because of course he has his own TikTok account).
“I screwed this up, I did,” Jackson said. “I have been completely roasted on this app over the last 48 hours. And I get it. If I were in your shoes, I would probably feel the same way. I would see someone who used this app to build a following and then appears to have voted against it. And I would be upset.” Jackson reportedly lost 100,000 followers on the app from his 2.3 million follower audience after his vote.
Jackson has tied his worth in Congress not to serving his constituents or making sensible decisions, but to his TikTok follower count. The exodus of followers managed to move him into apologizing for voting the way he did just days prior. There may not be a more telling comment from a politician showing what he or she prioritizes when considering legislation than Jackson lamenting that “I have been completely roasted on this app over the last 48 hours.”
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Jackson is right about one thing though: He absolutely is a hypocrite for running a TikTok account and building a following while voting to ban the app if it does not divest from Chinese control. Even if he is so easily influenced that he just followed the crowd when making that account, he is a coward for not cutting off his usage of the app completely unless and until its ownership is severed from China. He is also a coward for letting his “followers” number dictate his decision-making, leading to his embarrassing apology.
Jackson’s regrets are more akin to what you would see from a YouTube apology from some content creator or “influencer,” not from a member of Congress who represents constituents. Jackson has shown that his priorities lie with his follower count, not with the people who elected him to office.