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Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey thereon

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm

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Speaker 1: an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the tech

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Speaker 1: are You. So today we're going to look back at TikTok.

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Speaker 1: Over the course of twenty twenty three. This year, the

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Speaker 1: video sharing network found itself in the crosshairs of politicians

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Speaker 1: from all sorts of backgrounds and across the world, but

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Speaker 1: primarily I'll be talking about here in the United States. Now,

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Speaker 1: this in itself is not a new thing. It's not

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Speaker 1: like this all just started in twenty twenty three. In fact,

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Speaker 1: back in twenty twenty, then President Donald Trump wanted to

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Speaker 1: ban TikTok in the United States, citing it as a

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Speaker 1: threat to national security. This may well have initially spouted

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Speaker 1: from Trump's ongoing trade war with China, but it's a

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Speaker 1: narrative that has held first years later. But it's not

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Speaker 1: the only reason that politicians and regulators and various other

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Speaker 1: groups are concerned about TikTok. So let's break down some

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Speaker 1: of the things that unfolded over the past twelve months.

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Speaker 1: First of all, TikTok maintains it is an American company,

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Speaker 1: but the truth remains that its parent company, Byte Dance,

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Speaker 1: is in fact in China. And it's also true that

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Speaker 1: China has laws that require companies and citizens to share

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Speaker 1: information with the ruling party, the Chinese Communist Party, to

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Speaker 1: be precise, and that brings up the question does that

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Speaker 1: mean Bite Dance has been using TikTok to gather information

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Speaker 1: about other nations? And that is a matter of dispute. Still,

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Speaker 1: what's not in dispute is that China's government can get

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Speaker 1: awful hands on with companies in China, often requiring that

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Speaker 1: larger companies reserve a seat on the board for a

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Speaker 1: report presentative from the Chinese Communist Party itself. So the

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Speaker 1: thinking goes that even if TikTok is not actively working

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Speaker 1: as some sort of agent for the Chinese government, it

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Speaker 1: potentially could in the future, and no one at TikTok

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Speaker 1: would have any say in the matter. Now. Back in March,

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Speaker 1: the US Department of Justice and the FBI began an

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Speaker 1: investigation into TikTok, and on March twenty third, TikTok CEO

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Speaker 1: Shall Chew submitted testimony to the US House Committee on

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Speaker 1: Energy and Commerce in an attempt to smooth things over. Now,

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Speaker 1: Chew is from Singapore. He actually served in Singapore's armed forces.

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Speaker 1: He stated that TikTok would keep US citizen data stored

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Speaker 1: on secure servers located within the United States, so their

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Speaker 1: information would not be stored on servers in China, and

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Speaker 1: that they would protect that information quote from unauthorized foreign

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Speaker 1: access end quote. The testimony pointed out that TikTok was

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Speaker 1: partnering with Oracle for this purpose, and Oracle has a

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Speaker 1: pretty darn good reputation for that kind of thing. Chu

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Speaker 1: also categorically denied that China has any influence over the company,

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Speaker 1: pointing out that byte Dance is actually a global company

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Speaker 1: and saying that Citizen Lab investigated the possibility of data

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Speaker 1: transferring from TikTok to China and came back with no

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Speaker 1: evidence that any such transfer has actually happened. Essentially, Chu

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Speaker 1: was saying that the perception that China's government could put

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Speaker 1: the screws to Bite Dance and then by extension to

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Speaker 1: TikTok was just a good old case of thud, that is, fear, uncertainty,

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Speaker 1: and doubt. But then we get to July of this

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Speaker 1: year and we get another story that raises the scary

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Speaker 1: question of espionage once again, but in this case it

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Speaker 1: wasn't about targeting US citizens. Rather, a former Byte Dance

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Speaker 1: employee alleged that representatives of the Chinese Communist Party were

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Speaker 1: able to access TikTok's data in an effort to track

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Speaker 1: the activities of protesters in Hong Kong. This information came

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Speaker 1: out as part of a wrongful termination lawsuit brought against

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Speaker 1: By Dance by Jintao Yu, who was a former engineer

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Speaker 1: with TikTok. By Dance officials denied the charges, and they

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Speaker 1: also pointed out that you had made no such claims

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Speaker 1: in the immediate wake of his termination, because this was

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Speaker 1: happening five years after you had been fired. That he

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Speaker 1: was bringing forth these allegations that Chinese Communist Party was

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Speaker 1: able to use TikTok to track protesters in Hong Kong,

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Speaker 1: and presumably by extension, you could say, well, if they

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Speaker 1: can do that with protesters in Hong Kong, why couldn't

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Speaker 1: they do that to say, citizens in other countries as well.

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Speaker 1: So there's a lot of questionable activity going on here.

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Speaker 1: There is the question of if it did happened, why

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Speaker 1: did you wait five years to bring this up. Is

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Speaker 1: it just in an effort for you to get a

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Speaker 1: positive outcome in your wrongful termination lawsuit? Or is it

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Speaker 1: that you're telling the truth and that TikTok and Byte

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Speaker 1: Dance have been not telling the truth and have tried

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Speaker 1: to put a veil up over the fact that the

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Speaker 1: Communist Party can access TikTok. These are questions we don't

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Speaker 1: have answers to yet. So does that mean TikTok serves

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Speaker 1: as an information gathering service for the Chinese Communist Party?

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Speaker 1: It beats me, But in some ways it doesn't matter,

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Speaker 1: because the belief that this could happen appears to be

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Speaker 1: more than enough to raise concern in political circles within

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Speaker 1: the US and beyond. So whether it can or does

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Speaker 1: do this is almost immaterial. It's the perception that matters,

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Speaker 1: because that's what's driving a lot of political action against TikTok.

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Speaker 1: Various government agencies and organizations have been banning TikTok off

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Speaker 1: of work smartphones for a few years at this point.

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Speaker 1: Late in twenty twenty two, President Biden signed a bill

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Speaker 1: into law that would ban TikTok off merely all smartphones

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Speaker 1: owned by US federal government employees. That is actual federal

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Speaker 1: owned smartphones, right, So if you're issued a phone as

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Speaker 1: a federal employee, you're not supposed to put TikTok on

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Speaker 1: that phone. Your own personal phone, that's a different matter.

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Speaker 1: The state of Montana was the first state in the

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Speaker 1: US to pass a law that would actually ban TikTok

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Speaker 1: on all personal devices in the state. There are questions

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Speaker 1: as to how that would be enforced, how that would

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Speaker 1: actually work. The law was not meant to go into

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Speaker 1: effect until January of twenty twenty four, so it's not

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Speaker 1: in effect right now. And in November, a federal judge

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Speaker 1: threw up a ten temporary block on the law out

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Speaker 1: of concern that it violates the First Amendment and says

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Speaker 1: until that matter is decided, this law cannot go into effect,

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Speaker 1: so essentially saying we need to have discussions about whether

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Speaker 1: or not a ban on TikTok is a First Amendment violation,

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Speaker 1: but not all judges see it as being that, you know,

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Speaker 1: whibly wobbly or shade of gray. The state of Texas

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Speaker 1: issued a ban on state employee devices, so again not

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Speaker 1: a ban across all devices in the state, but if

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Speaker 1: you're a state employee and you have a smartphone that

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Speaker 1: was issued to you by the state, you're not supposed

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Speaker 1: to put TikTok on it. However, Texas's ban goes beyond

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Speaker 1: just the state issued smartphones. They say that if you

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Speaker 1: use your personal device to conduct state business, well that

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Speaker 1: applies too. So if you have your own personal device

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Speaker 1: and you do, I don't know you access your email,

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Speaker 1: your work email on your personal device, I guess you

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Speaker 1: could argue, well, you're using this for state business, so

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Speaker 1: you cannot put TikTok on your own personal phone. In

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Speaker 1: that case, this led to the Night First Amendment Institute

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Speaker 1: at Columbia University. Night in that case is spelled Knight.

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Speaker 1: This organization filed a federal lawsuit against the state of

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Speaker 1: Texas in an effort to strike down the ban on

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Speaker 1: the grounds of the First Amendment. So this group was

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Speaker 1: arguing that the band was having a negative effect on

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Speaker 1: state school faculty who needed to be able to access TikTok,

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Speaker 1: either to research the app because they're actually doing active

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Speaker 1: research on it, or to teach about TikTok in their classrooms.

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Speaker 1: But a federal judge disagreed with the argument and allowed

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Speaker 1: the band to stay in place. They essentially said that

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Speaker 1: the lawsuit lacked the proper grounds to have it struck down.

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Speaker 1: Beyond the concern around surveillance and espionage, there are worries

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Speaker 1: that TikTok is warping young minds. There's been a growing

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Speaker 1: movement that has argued that TikTok's algorithm is pushing specific

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Speaker 1: points of view onto the young people who are using it.

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Speaker 1: So the most recent example of this, it's not the

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Speaker 1: only one, but it is very recent, has grown out

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Speaker 1: of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Some politicians have

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Speaker 1: been arguing that TikTok has its algorithm biased against Israel

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Speaker 1: and is pushing pro Palestinian propaganda, as it were, to

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Speaker 1: young people, but some independent research suggests that that's just

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Speaker 1: not the case. TikTok's algorithm doesn't appear to favor any

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Speaker 1: particular political perspective. Rather, TikTok's algorithm serves content up to

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Speaker 1: users that is most likely to keep those users on TikTok. So,

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Speaker 1: in other words, TikTok really to doesn't care what you believe.

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Speaker 1: It just wants you to stay on TikTok. It almost

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Speaker 1: comes across sinister when you put it that way, that

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Speaker 1: they don't really care what your world view is. They

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Speaker 1: care that you stay on the app for as long

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Speaker 1: as possible, which kind of falls in line with all

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Speaker 1: the other social media platforms there. Right, It's all about

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Speaker 1: engagement and keeping you there for as long as possible,

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Speaker 1: because every moment you're somewhere else, you're not making money

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Speaker 1: for TikTok. Okay, I've got more to say about TikTok's

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Speaker 1: year in twenty twenty three, but before we get to that,

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Speaker 1: let's take a quick break to thank our sponsors. We're back,

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Speaker 1: all right. We're now brought up to the matter of

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Speaker 1: the state of Indiana versus tech Talk. Now, technically, Indiana

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Speaker 1: actually brought a pair of lawsuits against TikTok in twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty two, but then those two cases sort of consolidated

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Speaker 1: into a single lawsuit and played out over the course

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Speaker 1: of this year and only recently kind of came to

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Speaker 1: a head. Much of the lawsuits were focused on the

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Speaker 1: alleged harm TikTok can cause, and that the app had

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Speaker 1: somehow violated child safety laws. TikTok tried to get the

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Speaker 1: case moved to a federal court, but it was ultimately

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Speaker 1: remanded to state court. However, that didn't matter because a

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Speaker 1: state judge actually just dismissed the case, and in doing so,

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Speaker 1: gave a lengthy explanation as to why the matter had

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Speaker 1: no place in a state court in Indiana. So the

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Speaker 1: dismissal it's quite long. You can read it online and

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Speaker 1: it is very informative. But among the issues the judge

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Speaker 1: cited was that there was no evidence TikTok had targeted

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Speaker 1: Indiana or anyone in it, and so Indiana didn't really

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Speaker 1: have jurisdiction over this case. They also said that, well,

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Speaker 1: the it's in the lawsuit that bring up the matter

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Speaker 1: of TikTok's relationship to Bite Dance doesn't really constitute a

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Speaker 1: legal issue. That the state failed to present any evidence

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Speaker 1: that this relationship was in some way breaking the law.

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Speaker 1: Just because there is a relationship doesn't mean that it's

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Speaker 1: a matter for the courts. The judge also said that

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Speaker 1: the state failed to bring forth any credible evidence that

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Speaker 1: TikTok had committed any kind of fraud, among other things.

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Speaker 1: So in this battle, victory goes to TikTok. Now, I

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Speaker 1: do understand the concern about TikTok and its capacity to

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Speaker 1: amplify messages though again, that amplification comes from an algorithm

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Speaker 1: that doesn't really care what the message is. You could

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Speaker 1: argue that that's a problem because it also doesn't care

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Speaker 1: if the message is true or not right. TikTok doesn't

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Speaker 1: care if what you're posting is fake news other than

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Speaker 1: the fact that it looked bad on TikTok, and so

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Speaker 1: they do have an incentive to try and weed that

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Speaker 1: stuff out, but the algorithm doesn't care well. Pew Research

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Speaker 1: Center conducted a survey this year and found that nearly

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Speaker 1: a third of all Americans between the ages of eighteen

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Speaker 1: and twenty nine are relying on TikTok in part for

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Speaker 1: their news, and more than forty percent of TikTok users

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Speaker 1: in general said that they consume news on the platform. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: that makes TikTok a powerful communications tool, and if you're

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Speaker 1: clever enough to craft videos that really resonate, you could

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Speaker 1: leverage this to spread all sorts of information or misinformation

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Speaker 1: for that matter. So I do understand the concern around

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Speaker 1: the platform. It has the capacity to do great harm

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Speaker 1: if misused and if no one steps in to intervene.

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Speaker 1: But I'm not sure if any of that stuff actually

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Speaker 1: borders on the illegal or that it makes it that

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Speaker 1: much different from other existing social network sites. So if

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Speaker 1: you're really concerned about TikTok's impact, you need to look

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Speaker 1: beyond TikTok. Outside of TikTok's constant battle to not get

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Speaker 1: banned out of existence, there have been a few other

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Speaker 1: stories about the platform this year. One is that back

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Speaker 1: in November, TikTok released an announcement revealing that it was

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Speaker 1: bringing the two billion dollar Creator Fund to an end.

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Speaker 1: So the company had launched the Creator Fund in twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: and the whole purpose was to serve as a source

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Speaker 1: of money for folks who are making content on the platform,

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Speaker 1: because monetizing your work on TikTok was tricky. You could

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Speaker 1: maybe land a sponsorship, but that's sort of being paid

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Speaker 1: outside the platform itself. Right, how do you make money

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Speaker 1: through TikTok? Like in other platforms such as YouTube, they

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Speaker 1: run ads against your content and you get a share

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Speaker 1: of the ad revenue. That isn't how tikto works. So

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Speaker 1: TikTok needs content to serve to users. Otherwise there's nothing

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Speaker 1: there and there's no reason to use the app, and

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Speaker 1: the creators would probably like some sort of compensation for it.

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Speaker 1: You can't just depend upon brilliant people making amazing videos

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Speaker 1: for free forever. That's not going to work. But critics

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Speaker 1: said the fund wasn't actually solving any of TikTok's challenges,

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Speaker 1: that it was an outdated approach even when it launched,

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Speaker 1: you know, back in twenty twenty, and many claimed that

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Speaker 1: despite having videos with millions of views, they were actually

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Speaker 1: making very very little money at all from them. I

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Speaker 1: think Hank Green said that for every one thousand views

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Speaker 1: of a video he got, he would receive two point

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Speaker 1: five cents, which is not a great return. TikTok's replacement

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Speaker 1: for the Creator Fund is the Creativity Program, which the

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Speaker 1: company said would offer more substantial revenue opportunities for users,

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Speaker 1: but they do have to meet certain criteria. The videos

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Speaker 1: they produce need to be more than a minute long,

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Speaker 1: so they can't be these super short videos that just

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Speaker 1: go viral, and they have to rack up at least

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Speaker 1: a thousand views before they can be considered viable for

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Speaker 1: part of the Creativity Program. Of course, beyond all these stories,

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Speaker 1: we get to TikTok's impact on culture, everything from the

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Speaker 1: return of the Roman Empire to girl Dinner owes its

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Speaker 1: virality to TikTok, and since I don't use TikTok, and

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Speaker 1: because I'm old and I'm out of touch, I'm not

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Speaker 1: entirely sure what those things have to do with anything anyway,

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Speaker 1: Like the whole thing about guys think about the Roman

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Speaker 1: Empire more than girls do. Maybe, I mean, I haven't

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Speaker 1: thought about the Roman Empire in a long time, except

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Speaker 1: when I was reading a history about English monarchs, because

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Speaker 1: of course that starts with the fall of the Roman Empire.

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Speaker 1: But whatever. Anyway, by the time I'm aware of a trend,

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Speaker 1: it's ancient history. So there's no point of me even

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Speaker 1: diving into this any further. It'll just be cringey. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: as we in the United States head into an election year,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure we're going to see a lot more rhetoric

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Speaker 1: around TikTok. Honestly, it's a very easy target, with a

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Speaker 1: Chinese parent company and an incredible adoption rate among younger users,

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Speaker 1: as well as the fact that people are depending upon

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Speaker 1: it to get news content. It's just the sort of

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Speaker 1: thing that politicians like to lean on when they try

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Speaker 1: to position themselves as being concerned for our well being.

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Speaker 1: TikTok is the boogeyman that politicians can point to. It's

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Speaker 1: a lot easier to target TikTok and call it scary

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Speaker 1: and say that it's a threat to our personal and

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Speaker 1: national security. It's a lot easier to do that than

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Speaker 1: it is to do something about the serious underlying issues

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Speaker 1: that span well beyond a single platform. So I'm talking

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Speaker 1: about stuff like a comprehensive data privacy and security policy

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Speaker 1: that would put control of personal information back in the

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Speaker 1: hands of the people that the information is actually about,

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Speaker 1: as opposed to a sort of wild West anything goes

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Speaker 1: market that exists today in the United States. Right now,

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Speaker 1: we have very little control over our personal information, which

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Speaker 1: in my mind is a huge, huge, huge problem because

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Speaker 1: even if you don't have TikTok. Right let's say that

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Speaker 1: we did ban TikTok entirely and got rid of this

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Speaker 1: supposed asset for the Chinese Communist Party, nothing is stopping

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Speaker 1: the Chinese Communist Party from going to data brokers and

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Speaker 1: just buying information wholesale about citizens, the places they work,

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Speaker 1: maybe even information about the places they work conducting espionage

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Speaker 1: that way, Like, that's entirely possible with no TikTok in

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Speaker 1: the world. Whatsoever. So really, I argue we need to

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Speaker 1: focus on that more than this one instance of social

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Speaker 1: networking that I think scares old people because young people

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Speaker 1: like it so much. And I am an old person,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, TikTok freaks me out, but it doesn't freak

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Speaker 1: me out more than say Facebook or x slash Twitter.

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Speaker 1: I think TikTok's going to have another tough year in

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, but it's held on so far, so

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Speaker 1: maybe it'll weather the storm's just fine and just keep

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Speaker 1: ticking along and talking along. I guess. Meanwhile, I'm sure

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Speaker 1: the next big platform is just around the corner, and

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Speaker 1: when it comes out, it will scare the pants off

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Speaker 1: old folks even more than TikTok does. And so it is.

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Speaker 1: So that's sort of a look back on how TikTok's

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty three played out. That's an ongoing story, clearly.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll keep an eye on it next year.

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Speaker 1: In the meantime, I hope that all of you are

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Speaker 1: well and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech

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