By CCN.com: Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is playing both sides of the social media game.
In another two-faced move by the always controversial New York rep, Ocasio-Cortez has announced that she is discontinuing her personal use of Facebook. She also refers to social media as a “public health risk,” commenting:
“I think that social media poses a public health risk to everybody. There are amplified impacts for young people, particularly children under the age of three with screen time, but I think it has a lot of effects on older people. I think it has effects on everybody. Increased isolation, depression, anxiety, addiction and escapism.”
First off, this is information we’ve all heard before. Look on any blog discussing the negative effects of social media and it will likely say the same thing. One site – makeuseof.com – published a piece about the negative side effects of social media just six months ago. Among the side effects listed were “depression and anxiety,” which earned the No. 1 spot, and “addiction,” which earned the No. 7 spot. All three side effects are mentioned by AOC, so what she’s saying is just a repetition of things we’ve already heard.
The real problem here is her never-ending hypocrisy. The 29-year-old congresswoman has been benefiting from social media since the early days of her campaign, and she continues to do so. AOC admits that she still has several accounts on Facebook and that her campaign continues to benefit from Facebook ad revenue . Among these ads are those asking the public to support her now-defunct Green New Deal and to “counteract a super PAC” potentially working against her.
AOC regularly hosts live streams on Instagram in which she rambles to viewers about everything from current affairs to popcorn to the world’s oncoming demise within the next 12 years. She has also utilized Twitter during her time in Congress to cement her elitist attitudes and assure the American public that she’s “the boss.”
AOC says she’s stepping away from social media and believes it serves negative purposes but she’s continuing to benefit and profit from it. She wants to tax the wealthy at 70% but lives in a luxury high-rise apartment and enjoys a salary nearing $200,000 per year.
At this stage, consistency is looking less and less like her strongest point. Even after explaining that she would step away from social media, she stated in the same interview that she would “hop on Twitter on the weekends” and that she would only “take weekends off” when it came to consumption and reading social media content.
A similar situation occurred in a radio interview last February when the congresswoman admitted that her Green New Deal would require “massive government intervention.” Twelve hours later, she would state the exact opposite in an MSNBC interview.