Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven Am. TikTok
Speaker 1: is the most influential media platform for Australians under the
Speaker 1: age of twenty five. It's where millions get their news,
Speaker 1: whether they realize it or not. But TikTok is no
Speaker 1: longer just a cultural force. A trumpelined group of investors
Speaker 1: has taken over its American operations, aimed at keeping China
Speaker 1: at arm's length. Now users a claiming that content about
Speaker 1: ICE and its operations in Minnesota, where two American civilians
Speaker 1: were killed by federal agents, has been difficult to post,
Speaker 1: disappearing from the algorithm or reaching far fewer people than expected.
Speaker 1: TikTok has denied political censorship, saying the platform was experiencing
Speaker 1: technical disruption at the time. But it's raised the question
Speaker 1: when it comes to TikTok, who gets to decide what
Speaker 1: Americans see and what gets buried. Today, we're bringing you
Speaker 1: an episode from last year with associate editor at Kraki
Speaker 1: Cam Wilson, on the trumpification of TikTok. It's Sunday, February eight.
Speaker 1: This episode was originally published in October of twenty twenty five. Cam,
Speaker 1: is there a particular type of news or topic that
Speaker 1: travels best on TikTok or does that really depend on
Speaker 1: the user's own personal feed.
Speaker 2: Users have very very personalized feeds, and so every person's
Speaker 2: feed is very different. But the stuff that tends to
Speaker 2: break through are those kind of monoculture events, and those
Speaker 2: kinds of events are increasingly rare, but you know, things
Speaker 2: like the Charlie Kirk assassination. But it's also subject to
Speaker 2: the dynamics that affects many other things on social media
Speaker 2: on the Internet, which is, if something is video, it's
Speaker 2: going to go better on TikTok because you need the
Speaker 2: footage actually see something. And also things that encourage reactions,
Speaker 2: people responding conflict. Those are the kinds of things that
Speaker 2: are more likely to bubble through. You know what's about them,
Speaker 2: maybe nitty gritty of policy details and more about the fights,
Speaker 2: the thing that is dividing people. That is the stuff
Speaker 2: that naturally bubbles to the top, purely because of the
Speaker 2: way that these platforms like TikTok work, And.
Speaker 1: What about the design of TikTok itself, how has that
Speaker 1: influenced and changed the way other social media platforms work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean TikTok's will lad this trend that's taken
Speaker 2: over social media. I think it's pretty fair to say
Speaker 2: we are in a post social media world. The idea
Speaker 2: of Facebook connecting you to your friend, your family, your
Speaker 2: local community, the people who you know is kind of over,
Speaker 2: I think. Like in fact, so TikTok kind of led
Speaker 2: this new era of what it means to have social content,
Speaker 2: and it said, we don't really care that much about
Speaker 2: who you say you were for. We're going to use
Speaker 2: these other signals to determine what to show you because
Speaker 2: we actually think it's more engaging. We know you say
Speaker 2: that you want, but when we give you the stuff
Speaker 2: that you really want that we think will interest you.
Speaker 1: And so now there's a battle layer of the future
Speaker 1: of TikTok as a company, and it's framed as a
Speaker 1: battle between Washington and China over TikTok being a national
Speaker 1: security threat. So sit us down and tell us where
Speaker 1: this battle begins.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it really throughout its whole history, as
Speaker 2: soon as it became clearly an ascendent major platform, it
Speaker 2: has faced scrutiny and criticism because of its link to
Speaker 2: the Chinese Communist Party, and particularly in the US with
Speaker 2: I think one hundred and seventy million users now in
Speaker 2: the US, so an astronomical amount. It faced scrutiny on
Speaker 2: two areas. The first one is this idea of data
Speaker 2: that it's collecting from accusers, so you know, whenever you
Speaker 2: look on your locasion other information about your device, that
Speaker 2: is going to TikTok, that's going to buy dance, and
Speaker 2: the kind of accusation has always been that it's going
Speaker 2: to the Chinese Communist Party. Scond thing is this idea
Speaker 2: of it as a propaganda too, And if you consider it,
Speaker 2: like you know, the eight million austrains one hundred and
Speaker 2: seventy million US users, this app has a director line
Speaker 2: into all their lives and it is able to show
Speaker 2: them content that is actually failure paid to anyone else,
Speaker 2: like all that feels in distinct to be different. It's
Speaker 2: very hard to know from the outside. It's not like
Speaker 2: television with you to tuting and see whatever and else
Speaker 2: is watching, or check the TV guide or whatever. And
Speaker 2: there's always been this idea that the rules that the
Speaker 2: platform makes could be used full of various purposes. And
Speaker 2: so this idea that it represents a threat to national
Speaker 2: security because there could be people leaning on people and
Speaker 2: buydowance to encourage certain content to be shown to users, like,
Speaker 2: for example, content critical of their governments, or that it
Speaker 2: could be used to censor content that was critical of
Speaker 2: the Chinese government.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Viewing it not just as a kind of data extraction
Speaker 2: operation potentially, but also something that could be used to
Speaker 2: push certain messages with very little scrutiny has made all
Speaker 2: of people uneasy about it.
Speaker 1: And so what has the US government done about that?
Speaker 2: The history of TikTok and US Congress goes back to
Speaker 2: twenty twenty when there was a review into TikTok by
Speaker 2: the American government about the idea of it being a
Speaker 2: potential national security threat, saying that either TikTok has to
Speaker 2: divest and pass over its ownership to American owners or
Speaker 2: will ban it. And the result of that was that
Speaker 2: TikTok signed this very bizarre deal with Oracle, which is
Speaker 2: own and run by Larry Ellison, the Trump BELLI yeah exactly,
Speaker 2: and Oracle would host American TikTok user data in America
Speaker 2: and also have some kind of oversight role into its algorithm,
Speaker 2: its secret source. It didn't really address the underlying concerns.
Speaker 2: You know, data that's physically album in America can still
Speaker 2: be accessed in China, as it turns out was the
Speaker 2: case when by Dance reportedly access the data of a
Speaker 2: American journalist.
Speaker 4: Byte Dance, TikTok's parent has acknowledged four employees inappropriately obtained
Speaker 4: data of some US TikTok users, including two journalists. In
Speaker 4: a statement, the company condemned the actions of those involved
Speaker 4: and said they're no longer employed, but that's no reassurance
Speaker 4: the mind.
Speaker 2: And then this ambient concern over TikTok continued through the
Speaker 2: Biden presidency until it was credited that the October seventh
Speaker 2: attack revitalized interest in TikTok. From Congress was the accusation
Speaker 2: that the content that was being shown to TikTok users
Speaker 2: was leading to a rise in pro Palestinian sympathy in
Speaker 2: young Americans.
Speaker 5: Every thirty minutes that someone watches TikTok every day, they
Speaker 5: become seventeen percent more anti Semitic, more pro hamask Based
Speaker 5: on to that, we now know that fifty percent of
Speaker 5: adult eighteen to twenty five, I think that Hamas was warranted,
Speaker 5: and what they did with Israel that's a problem.
Speaker 2: Whether that's true, I think is far from proven. I
Speaker 2: don't think that we've ever seen really conclusive evidence that.
Speaker 2: For example, you know that there was a company directive
Speaker 2: to promote certain points of views about the Israel Gaza conflict.
Speaker 2: But regardless, this fervor led to the bipartisan support for
Speaker 2: the bill. The bill pass that TikTok needed to be
Speaker 2: under American ownership or face a ban by January nineteen,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. Coincidentally, the day before Donald Trump was
Speaker 2: sworn in, and when Trump came in, he delayed the
Speaker 2: ban a number of times until recently the final deal
Speaker 2: that was carried out by the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: After the break Trump talk so cam last year, the
Speaker 1: US Congress passed a law that said foreign adverse recontrolled
Speaker 1: apps like TikTok need to divest or be banned. And
Speaker 1: now Donald Trump assigned an executive order that would pave
Speaker 1: the way for an American run version of TikTok.
Speaker 3: Next, sir, we have an executive order on TikTok. From
Speaker 3: the first days of your administration. You've charged a team
Speaker 3: from your administration, led by Vice President Vance, with ensuring
Speaker 3: that we can preserve TikTok as a platform for one
Speaker 3: hundred and seventy million Americans who use it while ensuring
Speaker 3: that their data is properly protected as required by law
Speaker 3: with this executive or.
Speaker 1: So, can you just explain what this executive order sets out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we are now close to the year of
Speaker 2: trup talk where there is an American owned entity that
Speaker 2: will license a version of TikTok's algorithm, you.
Speaker 6: Know, run by American investors and American companies, great ones.
Speaker 7: Great investors are the biggest. You don't get bigger, I
Speaker 7: don't imagine.
Speaker 2: And maybe and there has also been discussions about retraining
Speaker 2: or you know, essentially fiddling around it and having its
Speaker 2: own twist on that algorithm. So that recipe that's deciding
Speaker 2: what to show uses. But from what we know about it,
Speaker 2: by dance, the company that has owned TikTok until recently
Speaker 2: will now be a minor owner in a US entity
Speaker 2: that will control the US operations. The major owners are
Speaker 2: Oracle that I mentioned before, which is run by a
Speaker 2: very close Trump ally who's been involved before, but now
Speaker 2: his role has grown in it.
Speaker 7: You'll see a list have you seen a list yet
Speaker 7: of the people, Well, you've been reading about that, it's
Speaker 7: I know, Michael Dell's involved, and Rupert Murdocks involved, and
Speaker 7: a lot of and let's say we have probably four
Speaker 7: or five absolutely worldless and that's just that love the
Speaker 7: country and they made a lot of money with the country.
Speaker 2: And so these are a group of all Trump aligned
Speaker 2: figures who are, you know, very rich people who involve
Speaker 2: in a whole bunch of other things, who now have
Speaker 2: some kind of control over TikTok. We just really don't
Speaker 2: exactly understand how it works, but it's fair to say
Speaker 2: that they will have some kind of influence over how
Speaker 2: TikTok works in America for American users.
Speaker 1: So we're saying a shift from a Chinese government aligned
Speaker 1: ownership to a Trump aligned ownership. What do you think
Speaker 1: that will mean for the type of news that we
Speaker 1: see on TikTok from now on.
Speaker 2: I think that we should expect it to change in
Speaker 2: some way, and I don't know how. When Trump was
Speaker 2: signing the executive order, he joked about it being onega content,
Speaker 2: was his line.
Speaker 7: I always liked MAGA related.
Speaker 6: If I could make it one hundred percent MAGA related,
Speaker 6: it's actually a good question, but I would, Yeah, if
Speaker 6: I could make it one hundred percent, I would, but
Speaker 6: it's not going to work out that way.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately.
Speaker 7: Now everyone's going to be treated fairly every group.
Speaker 2: We have seen that Trump has shepherded various traditional media
Speaker 2: properties to his allies, including Larry Elson's son, who recently
Speaker 2: bought Skydance, which is a big media company that has
Speaker 2: recently merged with Paramount and owns a lot of popular
Speaker 2: American media properties, including NBC News. They're also apparently looking
Speaker 2: to buy Warner Brothers, so there was an enormous amount
Speaker 2: of cultural reach and popular properties that it currently owns
Speaker 2: and potentially could own, And David Elson has expressed that
Speaker 2: he would like to rejig NBC News to represent a
Speaker 2: more conservative point of view. He's a very strong pro
Speaker 2: Israel advocate, and it's believed that he'd like to see
Speaker 2: that opinion reflected in the properties that he owns as well.
Speaker 2: So it wouldn't be crazy to imagine that that same
Speaker 2: thing would happen with TikTok. We're seeing, you know, all
Speaker 2: of these very very powerful companies that have a lot
Speaker 2: of cultural influence being shepherded into the hands of people
Speaker 2: who are closely aligned with Trump. So it is I
Speaker 2: think a pretty significant change in an environment that was
Speaker 2: already pretty homogeneous in terms of its ownership. The few holdouts,
Speaker 2: it seems like, are now being shepherded away and the
Speaker 2: keys of the kingdom are being handed over to the
Speaker 2: friends with the king.
Speaker 1: And cam It seems like maybe the next generation would
Speaker 1: escape the influence of the Murdoch Empire. In the past,
Speaker 1: they've been notoriously bad at speaking to younger audiences, remember
Speaker 1: the MySpace moment, of course, yes, But in getting a
Speaker 1: stake in TikTok, is there a sign their influence over
Speaker 1: the next generation will actually increase?
Speaker 2: I don't know, so I think you know. One of
Speaker 2: the great strengths of news corp in particularly Australia in
Speaker 2: the US as well is the way that it is
Speaker 2: able to use its influence for its own corporate interests.
Speaker 2: So wouldn't surprise you that if they got their hands
Speaker 2: on some kind of control over a social media platform
Speaker 2: that so far they've not really had any control over,
Speaker 2: that they use it to promote themselves, promote their other properties,
Speaker 2: promote their ideological views. It wouldn't surprise me at all.
Speaker 2: That being said, the reason they're cautious is that one
Speaker 2: as far as I know, they're not a major owner.
Speaker 2: The second thing is that there are a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of owners, and I think that you know, while people
Speaker 2: like political influence, they also have brought in because it's
Speaker 2: a money making operation as well. Anything that could threaten
Speaker 2: the popularity of it, would, you know, not just affect
Speaker 2: the Murdocks, but also other people as well. I understand
Speaker 2: why people are alarmed, but I think that there is
Speaker 2: a balance of these owners of this new Trump talk
Speaker 2: what aboutance Like, of course they want to if further
Speaker 2: they're ideological mission. We've seen that, I think with many
Speaker 2: of their owners, but they're also business people who've brought
Speaker 2: into something that could make them a lot of money.
Speaker 2: And like you know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: it's sometimes it's hard with all the business leaders who
Speaker 2: are expressing fuelty to the Trump administration, tata exactly know
Speaker 2: whether that is from the heart or from the bottom line.
Speaker 2: I think it's worth paying attention considering how those goals
Speaker 2: might influence each other.
Speaker 1: Follow the money, follow the money, follow the feed and
Speaker 1: the money. Thanks so much for your time, Cam, Thank you,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening to seven AM. We'll be back tomorrow
Speaker 1: with a new episode first Thing in the morning on
Speaker 1: the billionaires, big companies and secret dark money donors who
Speaker 1: are influencing our pulleys and our elections. Plus a billionaire
Speaker 1: Clive Palmer could be both part of the problem and
Speaker 1: the solution to our political donation problem.
Speaker 2: Elections must be fair.
Speaker 3: We don't want, as I said Wagers as politician.
Speaker 1: Enjoy our representatives in Parliament.
Speaker 2: We want a fair and a true democracy.
Speaker 1: We don't want a rigged election. And I hope in
Speaker 1: this the legal challenge to the High Court will be
Speaker 1: in a position where all.
Speaker 2: People can stands for Parliament on a free, fair basis.
Speaker 1: By for now,