Twitch IRC Returning Empty String

Chat and IRC
3

Here is essentially what my code is, besides connection variables

sock = socket.socket()
    sock.connect((server, port))
    sock.send(f"PASS {token}\r\n".encode('utf-8'))
    sock.send(f"NICK {nickname}\r\n".encode('utf-8'))
    sock.send(f"JOIN {channel}\r\n".encode('utf-8'))

    while True:
        resp = sock.recv(2048).decode('utf-8', 'ignore')
        if resp.startswith('PING'):
            sock.send("PONG\r\n".encode('utf-8'))
            print('PINGPONG')
        messageList = resp.splitlines()
        time.sleep(rate + 1)
        if not resp.startswith(':tmi.twitch.tv') and not resp.startswith(':streamelements') and not resp.startswith(':fossabot'):
            if resp == "":
                print('---------------EMPTY STRING---------------')
            for chatMessage in messageList:
                if chatMessage.find(' :') != -1 and chatMessage.find('!') != -1 and chatMessage.find('@') != -1:
                    userWithThing = chatMessage.split('!')[0]
                    user = userWithThing[1:]
                    message = chatMessage.split(' :')[1]
                    formattedChannel = channel[1:]
                    print('User: ' + user + ' Message: ' + message)

Am I handling the Pings correctly? I do see instances where “PINGPONG” gets printed to console, but they happen pretty irregularly.