00:00:04
let's move on to our main story tonight
00:00:06
which concerns Tik Tok the social media
00:00:08
app many are addicted to thanks to its
00:00:10
cooking tutorials dances that are
00:00:11
impossible for anyone born before 1985
00:00:13
to look cool doing and master pieces
00:00:16
like this there is truly nothing I love
00:00:19
more than watching this man's videos and
00:00:21
guessing what he's making
00:00:23
[Music]
00:00:28
okay I would like a
00:00:33
Mar totally aane got it what a journey
00:00:38
and honestly I don't know how TV is
00:00:40
supposed to compete with that I'd
00:00:42
absolutely watch that guy host a game
00:00:44
show titled dick or snake it's basically
00:00:47
is it cake only with significantly
00:00:49
higher snake on Dick injuries Tik Tok is
00:00:53
massively popular has more than a
00:00:54
billion users worldwide and 170 million
00:00:57
monthly active users in the US with
00:00:59
fully a third of us adults and a
00:01:01
majority of those under 30 using it all
00:01:04
of which makes it pretty remarkable that
00:01:06
it may be on the brink of going away
00:01:09
because you might have forgotten with
00:01:10
everything else going on this year but
00:01:11
in April this happened this morning the
00:01:14
clock begins ticking down for Tik Tok
00:01:17
after the Senate last night passed a
00:01:19
bill giving the social media platform's
00:01:21
Chinese parent company an ultimatum sell
00:01:24
the app or be banned in the US lawmakers
00:01:26
in both parties say Tik Tok poses a
00:01:28
serious National security risk it's true
00:01:31
Tik Tok could be banned by January 19th
00:01:34
because it's a security threat which
00:01:35
sounds frightening even if those claims
00:01:38
were made under footage of this orange
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furball going to town on its own feet we
00:01:43
cannot let the Chinese get their hands
00:01:44
on our private data like how often Dr
00:01:46
tunafish here gives himself the full
00:01:49
Tarantino the point is Congress came
00:01:52
down on Tik Tok hard and when that law
00:01:54
passed with broad bipartisan support by
00:01:57
the way Tik tok's users were not
00:01:59
thrilled
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an army of young Tik Tok Rebels are
00:02:02
taking a break from viral dance crazes
00:02:05
and challenges and coming together to
00:02:07
stop the government from taking away
00:02:09
their favorite social media platform
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they're using their phones to actually
00:02:14
make phone calls to members of Congress
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do not ban Tik Tok that's not acceptable
00:02:21
that's not acceptable I'm an 18-year-old
00:02:23
girl in Michigan what am I going to do
00:02:24
for China take my information I don't
00:02:26
care
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okay that is amazing reaction take my
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information I don't care my address is
00:02:33
2443 Emerson PL my blood type is a
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positive and I think my dad did tax
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fraud now why China I don't give a
00:02:40
but think about it Congress made
00:02:42
teenagers so mad they made actual phone
00:02:45
calls that is dedication teens hate
00:02:48
doing that if you ever need to scare one
00:02:50
just hand them a ringing phone and say
00:02:52
it's for
00:02:54
you but that reaction probably shouldn't
00:02:56
be surprising people love Tik Tok and
00:02:58
not just as a place to watch a guy
00:03:00
watching a guy make a giant chocolate
00:03:02
dick snake nearly 40% of adults under 30
00:03:06
say they regularly get their news from
00:03:07
Tik Tok and it's a significant driver of
00:03:09
business given that more than 7 million
00:03:11
small businesses use it and yet some
00:03:14
lawmakers insist it's also among the
00:03:16
biggest threats facing our nation Tik
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Tok is a grave national security threat
00:03:21
to Americans Tik Tok is just Chinese
00:03:23
malware it's just junk food for our
00:03:25
brains it is spy wear it is being
00:03:28
weaponized Tik Tok is a gun aimed at
00:03:32
Americans heads yeah those are some
00:03:34
strong words because we all know
00:03:35
Congress will not stand by and watch
00:03:37
someone pointing a metaphorical gun at
00:03:40
American's heads actual guns that's a
00:03:42
complicated issue for some reason but
00:03:44
metaphorical gun violence will not
00:03:46
stand so if an app this popular is
00:03:49
supposedly such a dire threat tonight
00:03:51
let's look at Tik Tok who's behind it
00:03:54
what the concerns are and what this
00:03:55
might really be all about because this
00:03:58
story is actually a lot more nuance
00:04:00
than you might think and let's start
00:04:02
with the fact that Tik tok's had a
00:04:03
meteoric rise it's owned by bik dance a
00:04:06
Chinese company who first made a similar
00:04:07
app for the Chinese market called Doan
00:04:09
back in 2016 the next year they launched
00:04:12
Tik Tok as the international version
00:04:14
then purchased an app called musically
00:04:16
with a pre-existing user base in the US
00:04:18
merging the two in 2018 to create the
00:04:20
app we know today but Tik tok's breakout
00:04:22
moment was the pandemic when all of a
00:04:24
sudden many of us were stuck at home
00:04:26
with nothing to do but learn how to make
00:04:29
Cloud bread whip up coffee and try to
00:04:31
master the Savage dance it is genuinely
00:04:34
hard to imagine a better scenario for
00:04:36
Tik Tok to thriving than a pandemic
00:04:38
suddenly they had a captive audience
00:04:40
whose only other entertainment options
00:04:41
were getting into sourdough Windex in
00:04:43
groceries a third time or of course
00:04:46
retreating into a blank void where they
00:04:47
slowly went insane I'm fine now don't
00:04:50
worry I'm fine
00:04:52
now but but lawmakers were already
00:04:54
raising alarms about Tik Tok being
00:04:56
Chinese owned and by mid 2020 Trump
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signed in executive order Banning it
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saying Tik Tok would be shut down unless
00:05:03
Microsoft or another company purchased
00:05:05
it from bik dance that never wound up
00:05:08
happening as a court found that Trump
00:05:09
had overstepped in trying to ban it by
00:05:11
executive order and in the years since
00:05:14
Tik tok's been out pains to publicly
00:05:16
distance itself from China it launched
00:05:18
something called project Texas where
00:05:19
they basically promised to store us
00:05:21
users data on us servers maintained by a
00:05:24
third- party us company which might
00:05:26
sound good but there are real questions
00:05:28
about how effective that has been with
00:05:30
one worker saying the data protections
00:05:32
amount to basically a wink and a notd
00:05:35
meanwhile they've launched a PR push
00:05:37
with leaning hard into Americana like in
00:05:40
this one featuring a veteran named
00:05:42
patriotic Kenny my scoter BR down I went
00:05:46
into a depression how you feel about
00:05:48
that pretty sad and I posted it to show
00:05:50
that Kenny's not always happy within 24
00:05:53
hours um people had donated over $55,000
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you're kid and within a week people had
00:05:58
donated
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$110,000 and can he hit a million
00:06:02
followers it has changed my life
00:06:05
tremendously none of this would have
00:06:07
happened without Tik
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Tock wow I don't know what's more
00:06:11
American there Kenny's Tas in home decor
00:06:13
or the fact he had to go viral on social
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media to get access to basic medical
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equipment although to be clear Tik Tok
00:06:20
didn't buy Kenny a scooter other people
00:06:23
did it's a bit like having people put
00:06:25
money in a jar for charity then thanking
00:06:27
the jar none of this could have happened
00:06:29
happened Without You jar truly you are
00:06:32
the best of us but despite those efforts
00:06:36
concerned about China's influence over
00:06:37
Tik Tok continue to grow culminating in
00:06:40
the law passed earlier this year
00:06:41
demanding it be sold or banned from App
00:06:43
Stores in the US a law by the way that
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pass the house 352 to 65 and it's worth
00:06:50
talking about the government's two main
00:06:52
concerns here the data Tik Tok is
00:06:54
collecting from its users and the power
00:06:56
it has to push content to them and let's
00:06:59
start with
00:07:00
the data Tik Tok is powered by an
00:07:01
algorithm that tracks things like what
00:07:03
videos you skip past and which you
00:07:05
Linger on that way it can quickly figure
00:07:06
out exactly what you like and feed you
00:07:09
more of the same thing over and over
00:07:11
again not unlike a doting grandmother or
00:07:14
Marvel
00:07:15
Studios sometimes people are genuinely
00:07:18
weirded out by how perceptive Tik tok's
00:07:20
algorithm can be because it can seem to
00:07:22
know you better than you might know
00:07:24
yourself I downloaded this app a year
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ago I thought I was straight after being
00:07:29
on Tik Tok I quickly realized I was an
00:07:32
ostr and that I was bisexual I always
00:07:35
say that the algorithm knew that I was
00:07:36
gay before I did and I stand by that it
00:07:39
absolutely knew are any other girls like
00:07:41
kind of aggravated that it took more
00:07:43
than 20 years to figure out we were
00:07:44
bisexual but it took my Tik Tok
00:07:46
algorithm like 37
00:07:48
seconds what it Sav me so much
00:07:51
time yeah Tik Tok is speedrunning
00:07:54
people's sexual
00:07:55
Awakenings before a revelation like that
00:07:57
might have taken years of therapy or an
00:07:59
entire episode of Xena Warrior
00:08:02
Princess I honestly don't think a
00:08:04
machine has been responsible for more
00:08:06
sexual Awakening since the Iron Giant
00:08:08
and I'm not explaining myself to you
00:08:10
about that I'm not doing it he's an
00:08:12
objectively hot robot he's tall has kind
00:08:15
eyes is great with kids and I'm sure has
00:08:17
a vibrate setting don't be weird about
00:08:19
this you're being
00:08:21
weird the algorithm is incredibly
00:08:24
powerful because you're constantly
00:08:26
feeding it new data every interaction
00:08:28
you have with a video trains it more on
00:08:30
your preferences and because those
00:08:31
videos are so short it can gather a lot
00:08:34
of data about you very quickly but that
00:08:36
is not all the information it gathers it
00:08:38
knows the device that you're using your
00:08:40
location IP address search history the
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content of your messages what you're
00:08:43
viewing and for how long it also INF
00:08:45
first factors such as your age range
00:08:47
gender and interest and in the US its
00:08:49
own privacy policy since it may collect
00:08:51
biometric information including face and
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voice prints from any content you post
00:08:56
that is a lot of personal information
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and some of of Tik tok's critics paint
00:09:00
an alarming picture of what that means
00:09:03
imagine you woke up tomorrow morning and
00:09:04
you saw a news report that China had
00:09:07
distributed a 100 million sensors around
00:09:10
the United States and that anytime an
00:09:13
American walked past one of these
00:09:14
sensors this sensor automatically
00:09:17
collected off of your phone your name
00:09:19
your home address your personal Network
00:09:22
who you're friends with your online
00:09:24
viewing habits and a whole host of other
00:09:26
pieces of information well that's
00:09:28
precisely what Tik toac is yeah that's a
00:09:31
scary sounding message only slightly
00:09:33
undercut by the fact that guy's name is
00:09:35
and this is true Clon
00:09:37
kitchen which sounds less like a name to
00:09:40
trust and more like a startup trying to
00:09:41
disrupt the spatula
00:09:43
space basically the concern is that all
00:09:46
this data could one day be used by the
00:09:48
Chinese government to identify
00:09:50
intelligence opportunities for example
00:09:51
by helping China uncover the viic
00:09:53
predictions or pressure points of a
00:09:55
potential spy recruit or blackmail
00:09:57
Target and I mean maybe
00:10:00
I guess there's a nonzero chance a
00:10:02
future US president is currently running
00:10:04
a fan account devoted to Sonic the
00:10:06
Hedgehog's feet which could be
00:10:08
weaponized against them in the future
00:10:10
though it is worth noting a huge
00:10:11
component of blackmail requires
00:10:14
shame and if you're not on Tik Tok you
00:10:17
are missing out on just how little shame
00:10:20
its users have there is an entire
00:10:22
challenge that just consist of naming
00:10:23
your biggest traumas for all the world
00:10:26
to hear while dumping candy into a bowl
00:10:29
and and it is riveting and look I'm not
00:10:32
saying bik dance hasn't been guilty of
00:10:34
alarming privacy violations it has a few
00:10:36
years back this reporter was
00:10:38
investigating Tik Tok and bik dance only
00:10:40
to learn that she was being investigated
00:10:43
herself after I wrote my first few
00:10:45
stories I got a big leak from inside the
00:10:49
company someone inside the company um
00:10:52
gave me a bunch of audio recordings in
00:10:54
an effort to discover the leak a team of
00:10:56
B dance employees launched a
00:10:57
surveillance project called project
00:10:59
Raven pulling information from Emily's
00:11:02
personal Tik Tok account to monitor her
00:11:04
IP address and the theory was that if
00:11:08
they could match my IP address to the IP
00:11:11
address of one of their employees they
00:11:13
could maybe Place me and an employee at
00:11:17
a Starbucks or at a library at the same
00:11:19
time and then maybe figure out who was
00:11:22
talking to me yeah if they knew one of
00:11:24
their employees had been in the same
00:11:26
location as that journalist it' be a
00:11:28
pretty big clue and it was much easier
00:11:30
to pull IP addresses than go through
00:11:32
every Starbucks dumpster to try and find
00:11:34
the cup that said secret whistleblower
00:11:36
now now I have to tell you the company
00:11:38
says the employees involved in that
00:11:40
surveillance scheme were fired and it's
00:11:41
restructured the team in charge of
00:11:42
internal Audits and removed access to us
00:11:45
data but critics point out it doesn't
00:11:47
really matter how good bike Dan's public
00:11:50
intentions are because fundamentally
00:11:52
they're vulnerable to the whims of the
00:11:53
Chinese government which has shown a
00:11:56
clear willingness to go after American
00:11:58
data officials have blamed Chinese
00:12:00
hackers for breaches of the office of
00:12:02
personnel management Anthem health and
00:12:04
Equifax among others and if China wanted
00:12:07
to pressure bite dance to do something
00:12:09
for it the company wouldn't be able to
00:12:11
put up much of a fight Chinese law says
00:12:14
that if the Chinese government asks a
00:12:16
company to cooperate it has no choice no
00:12:19
appeal no going to court no laying
00:12:22
across the railroad tracks and so by Dan
00:12:25
they could be perfectly innocent today
00:12:27
and if Xi Jinping wakes up in a bad mood
00:12:28
tomor tomorrow they could be doing
00:12:30
something bad yeah again that sounds bad
00:12:33
major decisions that affect millions of
00:12:35
people could hinge on whether or not the
00:12:36
leader of a country wakes up in a bad
00:12:38
mood it's the kind of unpredictable
00:12:40
emotionally volatile leadership you get
00:12:42
in China and luckily nowhere
00:12:45
else and while that does sound
00:12:47
frightening it's important to note that
00:12:49
there's also a lot of if in how this
00:12:51
tends to get discussed Tik Tok insist it
00:12:54
hasn't and wouldn't give data to China
00:12:56
but whether or not you believe them
00:12:57
there is still no public evidence the
00:12:59
Chinese government has actually spied on
00:13:01
people through Tik Tok what's more while
00:13:04
it does collect a lot of data on its
00:13:06
users as we discussed in our data broker
00:13:08
story lots of other apps do the exact
00:13:11
same thing in fact when the Washington
00:13:13
Post worked with a privacy researcher to
00:13:15
look under the hood at Tik Tok they
00:13:17
concluded that it doesn't appear to
00:13:18
collect any more data than your typical
00:13:21
mainstream social network for instance
00:13:23
while Tik Tok is tracking users around
00:13:26
the internet even when they aren't using
00:13:28
the app the the same tracking tool is
00:13:30
used by meta and Google on a far larger
00:13:33
scale and even when it comes to tracking
00:13:35
reporters Tik Tok is not an outlier
00:13:38
given an Uber executive once used an
00:13:40
internal tool named God viiew to track
00:13:42
the location of a buzzfeed news reporter
00:13:44
who was covering the company and again I
00:13:46
am not giving Tik Tok a pass here I'm
00:13:49
just pointing out that its behavior is
00:13:51
pretty consistent with silicon Valley's
00:13:53
own very shitty standards think of Tik
00:13:56
Tok as a soft drink company in the 1800
00:13:59
sure it's product is mostly cocaine but
00:14:01
hey show me a child's beverage that
00:14:05
isn't so that is the case as it relates
00:14:08
to Tik tok's usage of data but what
00:14:10
about the claim that it can push
00:14:12
propaganda or bury content that makes
00:14:14
China look bad well bik dance does do
00:14:17
that within China Doan the version of
00:14:20
Tik Tok for the Chinese market has to
00:14:22
play by China's rules when it comes to
00:14:24
censorship and has banned a broad range
00:14:26
of supposedly subversive topics
00:14:28
including any content that causes
00:14:30
discomfort and when Tik Tok first
00:14:32
started growing internationally it did
00:14:34
seem to bring some of that ethos with it
00:14:36
in 2019 leak document show Tik Tok had
00:14:38
instructed moderators to ban content on
00:14:41
highly controversial topics citing
00:14:42
mentions of tanaman square Tibetan
00:14:44
Independence or the band religious group
00:14:46
Fallon gong as examples and in 2020 the
00:14:49
interet reported its moderators were
00:14:51
also told to censor political speech in
00:14:53
live streams as well as fun fact users
00:14:55
deemed too ugly poor or disabled for the
00:14:58
platform now Tik Tok insists those were
00:15:01
old guidelines no longer in use and that
00:15:03
their moderation practices are now more
00:15:05
transparent but some researchers believe
00:15:07
there is still reason to worry here one
00:15:10
team studying Tik Tok created fake
00:15:12
accounts representing American teenagers
00:15:14
and they were alarmed at what they found
00:15:17
when I go to YouTube we put in tenan and
00:15:19
the first thing you have are mainstream
00:15:21
news documentaries but researchers say
00:15:24
most of the content regarding tenen that
00:15:26
showed up on Tik Tok was in their
00:15:28
judgment not relevant or pro-china
00:15:31
compared to what showed up on Instagram
00:15:33
and YouTube when we looked at Material
00:15:35
that's sensitive to the Chinese
00:15:37
Communist Party these materials were
00:15:39
significantly inexplicably
00:15:41
underrepresented on the platform right
00:15:44
they concluded that videos undesirable
00:15:46
to the CCP were underrepresented though
00:15:48
interestingly not
00:15:50
unrepresented Tik Tok says that study is
00:15:53
flawed and while I hate to agree with
00:15:55
them the methodology is a bit weird
00:15:57
because the researchers searched words
00:15:59
like shin Jong Tibet and tianan clicked
00:16:02
on the first result and let the
00:16:04
algorithm take it from there which
00:16:05
doesn't seem like how people tend to
00:16:07
search for information if you just type
00:16:09
in America and search it is going to
00:16:12
leave out a lot and honestly given how
00:16:15
spookily good Tik tok's algorithm is at
00:16:17
knowing exactly what you want it might
00:16:19
even have concluded got it you're a
00:16:21
bearded researcher pretending to be a
00:16:22
16-year-old looking for evidence to
00:16:24
support your censorship hypothesis here
00:16:26
are the results that deep down you want
00:16:28
also fun fact you're
00:16:31
buy ultimately ultimately it is hard to
00:16:35
know for sure though because the
00:16:36
algorithm is proprietary and the
00:16:38
decisions it makes about content are
00:16:40
largely opaque and banning Tik Tok out
00:16:42
of fear it may be a vessel for foreign
00:16:44
influence is a little weird for a few
00:16:47
reasons First China like many countries
00:16:50
including the US has covert influence
00:16:53
operations like accounts pushing
00:16:55
propaganda running on all sorts of
00:16:57
platforms and recent say they haven't
00:17:00
seen a particular focus on Tik Tok that
00:17:02
goes beyond the ones it also runs on
00:17:04
Facebook Instagram and YouTube and when
00:17:07
it comes to China directly influencing
00:17:09
Tik Tok behind the scenes even the
00:17:11
government's own filings say Point Blank
00:17:13
that they have no direct evidence China
00:17:16
has used Tik Tok for propaganda purposes
00:17:18
in the US but there is significant risk
00:17:20
that it could happen but as long as this
00:17:23
argument is about what could be the case
00:17:26
we should probably ask could there be
00:17:29
any ulterior motives behind the US
00:17:31
government's approach here because
00:17:32
alongside the concern about National
00:17:34
Security it does feel like there can be
00:17:36
an undercurrent of xenophobia here is
00:17:39
Tom Cotton interrogating Tik Tok CEO you
00:17:42
said today as you often say that you
00:17:44
live in Singapore of what nation are you
00:17:47
a citizen Singapore are you a citizen of
00:17:50
any other Nation no Zen have you ever
00:17:53
applied for Chinese citizenship Senator
00:17:55
I serve my nation in Singapore no I did
00:17:58
not do you have a Singaporean passport
00:18:00
yes and I served my military for two and
00:18:02
a half years in singap you have any
00:18:03
other do you have any other passports
00:18:05
from any other nations no Canada your
00:18:07
wife is an American citizen your
00:18:08
children are American citizens that's
00:18:10
correct have you ever applied for
00:18:11
American citizenship not no not yet
00:18:16
okay have you ever been a member of the
00:18:18
Chinese Communist Party Senator I'm
00:18:20
single no have you ever been Associated
00:18:23
or affiliated with the Chinese Communist
00:18:24
party no Senator again I'm Singaporean
00:18:29
so bad I almost wish that line of
00:18:31
questioning it kept going okay but do
00:18:32
you know where China is on a map yes yes
00:18:35
Senator I do how do you know where China
00:18:37
is what do you mean I'll say it again
00:18:39
how do you know where China is because I
00:18:42
can read a map and how can you read a
00:18:44
map because I learned to in school and
00:18:46
what kind of school would teach a child
00:18:49
to read a map of China any school not
00:18:52
any of ours well that's not great is it
00:18:54
so you're insulting the USA cuz you're a
00:18:56
secret Chinese citizen arrest my cas
00:18:59
and look obviously Tom Cotton is a
00:19:02
persistent piece of but it is hard
00:19:04
to shake the feeling that at least part
00:19:06
of the panic here stems from an ugly
00:19:09
place and that's not the only possible
00:19:11
motivator there's also the fact that
00:19:13
there are plenty of big US tech
00:19:14
companies that would very much like
00:19:16
their market share back from Tik Tok
00:19:18
meta and YouTube now each have their own
00:19:20
Tik Tok knockoffs in the forms of reals
00:19:22
and YouTube shorts and met has been
00:19:24
caught openly seeding negative stories
00:19:26
about Tik Tok even hiring a marketing
00:19:28
firm with one campaign director saying
00:19:30
in an email the dream would be to get
00:19:32
stories with headlines like from dances
00:19:34
to Danger which to be honest sounds like
00:19:37
a Netflix True Crime documentary about a
00:19:39
ballet studio that turned out to be a
00:19:41
sex cult and Mark Zuckerberg seen here
00:19:44
looking like the chef from ratat two
00:19:45
he's trying to Pivot to
00:19:46
bitcoin personally lobbied Trump on the
00:19:49
risk posed by his competition in 2019 in
00:19:52
a private dinner at the White House he
00:19:54
made the case that the rest of the the
00:19:56
rise of Chinese internet companies
00:19:58
threatens American Business and should
00:20:00
be a bigger concern than reigning in
00:20:02
Facebook which seems a little suspect to
00:20:05
me if you get caught shoplifting the
00:20:08
best defense isn't usually hey that guy
00:20:10
did it too and he's
00:20:12
Chinese and and honestly Banning Tik Tok
00:20:15
might be the only thing that helps meta
00:20:18
here because as some Tik Tok creators
00:20:19
will tell you they much prefer the
00:20:21
platform to its us competitors 100% of
00:20:24
my customer base were derived directly
00:20:26
from Tik Tok for instance there was a
00:20:28
gentlem that saw one of my Tik Tok
00:20:30
videos just yesterday and he saw a
00:20:32
couple cows in the background that he
00:20:33
really really liked he reached out to me
00:20:35
and he said are those cows for sale by
00:20:37
chance he did not see those cattle on
00:20:40
Facebook or Instagram let's face it
00:20:42
Facebook is archaic it's dead
00:20:44
Instagram's Prime was more than seven
00:20:45
years ago this this is the number one
00:20:48
platform in the world right now and this
00:20:50
is where number of our customers are
00:20:51
coming from Wow there is no way to
00:20:54
undersell how completely cooked you are
00:20:57
as a tech company where when that guy is
00:20:59
telling you you're behind the
00:21:02
times he looks like his number one
00:21:04
concern is rusters and concerns 2
00:21:06
through 7 are all Stampede related so if
00:21:09
he is explaining why your social media
00:21:11
platform is substandard you are done
00:21:14
goodbye so very basically that is the
00:21:17
case pro and con for this potential Tik
00:21:20
Tok ban or at least the public case
00:21:22
because there is one more element of the
00:21:24
government's argument I haven't talked
00:21:25
about yet but only because it's
00:21:27
basically impossible to do that as they
00:21:29
won't tell us what it is there is a line
00:21:32
that keeps coming up with lawmakers
00:21:34
whenever they are advocating for this
00:21:35
ban is there concrete evidence that that
00:21:38
we can point to that says that nefarious
00:21:41
activity is going on yes a lot of it is
00:21:43
classified Tik Tok is certainly a
00:21:45
national security threat we've seen
00:21:48
evidence in a classified setting many
00:21:50
Americans particularly Young Americans
00:21:51
are rightfully skeptical at the end of
00:21:53
the day they've not seen what Congress
00:21:56
has seen they've not been in the
00:21:57
classified brief that Congress has held
00:22:00
and here's the thing about that right we
00:22:03
haven't seen it so maybe you need to
00:22:06
show it to us because saying trust us
00:22:09
it's super scary only really works when
00:22:11
the person saying it is someone you
00:22:12
fundamentally trust in the first place
00:22:15
Tik Tok is currently suing the
00:22:16
government over the impending ban and in
00:22:18
its filings the government's redacted
00:22:20
significant portions of the evidence it
00:22:22
says it has with some parts of its
00:22:23
affidavits looking like this and
00:22:26
Incredibly even bite dance and Tik Tok
00:22:29
don't know what's behind those black
00:22:30
bars because the government's not
00:22:32
revealing its evidence to them either
00:22:34
which feels wrong because usually
00:22:37
showing your evidence is a fundamental
00:22:39
tenit of American Justice it's right up
00:22:42
there with a a right to plead your case
00:22:44
and to be Tried by 12 half asleep
00:22:45
strangers who'd rather be anywhere else
00:22:47
in the world right now and the
00:22:50
condescension of just trust us can get
00:22:52
really frustrating especially when it's
00:22:55
expressed like this I think it's
00:22:56
important to recognize were actually
00:22:59
doing this to protect the privacy of
00:23:02
Americans people feel like they're
00:23:04
taking their rights away but it's
00:23:06
actually protecting their privacy but is
00:23:09
it though because it in a world where
00:23:11
Instagram knows your location Uber knows
00:23:14
your childhood fears and door Dash has a
00:23:16
detailed 3D rendering of your small
00:23:18
intestine its Executives use as a screen
00:23:20
saver claiming your protecting Americans
00:23:23
privacy by Banning Tik Tok feels like
00:23:25
claiming you're fighting climate change
00:23:27
by Banning the key
00:23:29
sento sure I mean it's technically not
00:23:32
nothing but it is in a larger sense
00:23:34
basically nothing one of the reasons
00:23:37
this story is difficult to navigate is
00:23:38
there is so much we don't know and
00:23:40
coming from two sides I don't remotely
00:23:42
trust because you either taking the word
00:23:44
of a multinational tech company that
00:23:46
profits off your data or the US
00:23:48
government which seems more than happy
00:23:50
to turn a blind eye whenever American
00:23:52
companies do the exact same thing and
00:23:55
who knows where things could go from
00:23:57
here Tik tok's lawsuit May end up before
00:23:58
The Supreme Court meaning that January
00:24:00
19th deadline will likely get extended
00:24:03
into the Trump presidency and remember
00:24:05
he's the one who tried Banning Tik Tok
00:24:07
in the first place though he's now done
00:24:09
a complete 180 on that releasing this
00:24:11
video during the campaign for all of
00:24:14
those that want to save ticktock in
00:24:16
America vote for Trump the other side's
00:24:18
closing it up but I'm now a big star on
00:24:23
Tik Tock so if you like ticktock go out
00:24:26
and vote for Trump I mean it's perfect
00:24:28
as always it is genuinely hard to focus
00:24:32
on the message there because of the
00:24:33
weird energy that he's
00:24:35
projecting his deliver is giving okay
00:24:37
now how about a silly one mixed with the
00:24:39
spontaneous delayed release of 60 years
00:24:41
of diet pills so apparently Trump wants
00:24:44
to save ticktock now either by getting
00:24:48
Congress to repeal the ban or
00:24:50
undermining it some other way although
00:24:51
he could very well just change his mind
00:24:53
again he has been known to do that so
00:24:56
where does that leave the rest of us
00:24:58
well I don't know we talked to a lot of
00:25:00
experts on both sides of this ban
00:25:03
National Security types tend to be in
00:25:05
the why risk it just banic Camp while
00:25:07
those in the tech policy space are more
00:25:09
concerned about whether the benefits of
00:25:11
that would outweigh the Free Speech
00:25:13
implications of banning a massive
00:25:14
platform and I'm slightly torn this show
00:25:17
has an account on Tik Tok I personally
00:25:20
do not have it on my phone partly
00:25:22
because I don't trust it mostly because
00:25:24
I am very old but but if there's one
00:25:27
thing many experts do agree on is that
00:25:29
the risks to Americans data online in no
00:25:32
way end with China or Tik Tok as one
00:25:35
puts it Tik Tok represents maybe 2% of
00:25:37
the problem when it comes to Americans
00:25:39
privacy adding that without adequate
00:25:41
Privacy Law there are millions of apps
00:25:43
that are collecting and abusing
00:25:45
Americans data and frustratingly there
00:25:47
is just no good reason why we don't have
00:25:49
better protections the US is the only
00:25:51
country in the G20 that doesn't have
00:25:54
some kind of comprehensive Privacy Law
00:25:56
protecting consumer data we've been
00:25:58
behind the rest of the world on this
00:25:59
issue for an embarrassingly long time
00:26:02
there was actually an effort to shore
00:26:04
things up earlier this year called the
00:26:06
American privacy Rights Act which
00:26:07
contained robust data protections like
00:26:10
the requirement that companies minimize
00:26:12
the amount of data they collect so that
00:26:13
the owners is on them to collect less
00:26:15
and not on us having to play constant
00:26:17
defense with a million different op outs
00:26:20
unfortunately it was stripped of some of
00:26:22
its most crucial parts and support for
00:26:23
it eventually evaporated but we badly
00:26:25
need something like it just for a
00:26:28
Baseline level of protection here I I
00:26:31
guess what I'm saying is this Tik Tok
00:26:33
ban ultimately may not even be necessary
00:26:36
but it definitely isn't sufficient or to
00:26:38
summarize all of this the only way
00:26:40
anyone on Tik Tok can seem to
00:26:42
internalize that is while watching
00:26:44
someone make fancy chocolates or dancing
00:26:46
if we really want to better protect
00:26:48
Americans and their data that's great
00:26:50
that's a penis by the way but but you
00:26:52
don't just do that by Banning one
00:26:53
company that's a chocolate penis with
00:26:55
ridges around it you do that by putting
00:26:56
in actual guard rails that would apply
00:26:58
to all of them oh it's a screw oh yeah
00:27:00
it's totally a screw oh you know what
00:27:02
it's a robot penis it's a chocolate
00:27:04
robot penis you know what hit it and
00:27:08
now this
