Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey thereon
Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm
Speaker 1: an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the tech
Speaker 1: are You. So today we're going to look back at TikTok.
Speaker 1: Over the course of twenty twenty three. This year, the
Speaker 1: video sharing network found itself in the crosshairs of politicians
Speaker 1: from all sorts of backgrounds and across the world, but
Speaker 1: primarily I'll be talking about here in the United States. Now,
Speaker 1: this in itself is not a new thing. It's not
Speaker 1: like this all just started in twenty twenty three. In fact,
Speaker 1: back in twenty twenty, then President Donald Trump wanted to
Speaker 1: ban TikTok in the United States, citing it as a
Speaker 1: threat to national security. This may well have initially spouted
Speaker 1: from Trump's ongoing trade war with China, but it's a
Speaker 1: narrative that has held first years later. But it's not
Speaker 1: the only reason that politicians and regulators and various other
Speaker 1: groups are concerned about TikTok. So let's break down some
Speaker 1: of the things that unfolded over the past twelve months.
Speaker 1: First of all, TikTok maintains it is an American company,
Speaker 1: but the truth remains that its parent company, Byte Dance,
Speaker 1: is in fact in China. And it's also true that
Speaker 1: China has laws that require companies and citizens to share
Speaker 1: information with the ruling party, the Chinese Communist Party, to
Speaker 1: be precise, and that brings up the question does that
Speaker 1: mean Bite Dance has been using TikTok to gather information
Speaker 1: about other nations? And that is a matter of dispute. Still,
Speaker 1: what's not in dispute is that China's government can get
Speaker 1: awful hands on with companies in China, often requiring that
Speaker 1: larger companies reserve a seat on the board for a
Speaker 1: report presentative from the Chinese Communist Party itself. So the
Speaker 1: thinking goes that even if TikTok is not actively working
Speaker 1: as some sort of agent for the Chinese government, it
Speaker 1: potentially could in the future, and no one at TikTok
Speaker 1: would have any say in the matter. Now. Back in March,
Speaker 1: the US Department of Justice and the FBI began an
Speaker 1: investigation into TikTok, and on March twenty third, TikTok CEO
Speaker 1: Shall Chew submitted testimony to the US House Committee on
Speaker 1: Energy and Commerce in an attempt to smooth things over. Now,
Speaker 1: Chew is from Singapore. He actually served in Singapore's armed forces.
Speaker 1: He stated that TikTok would keep US citizen data stored
Speaker 1: on secure servers located within the United States, so their
Speaker 1: information would not be stored on servers in China, and
Speaker 1: that they would protect that information quote from unauthorized foreign
Speaker 1: access end quote. The testimony pointed out that TikTok was
Speaker 1: partnering with Oracle for this purpose, and Oracle has a
Speaker 1: pretty darn good reputation for that kind of thing. Chu
Speaker 1: also categorically denied that China has any influence over the company,
Speaker 1: pointing out that byte Dance is actually a global company
Speaker 1: and saying that Citizen Lab investigated the possibility of data
Speaker 1: transferring from TikTok to China and came back with no
Speaker 1: evidence that any such transfer has actually happened. Essentially, Chu
Speaker 1: was saying that the perception that China's government could put
Speaker 1: the screws to Bite Dance and then by extension to
Speaker 1: TikTok was just a good old case of thud, that is, fear, uncertainty,
Speaker 1: and doubt. But then we get to July of this
Speaker 1: year and we get another story that raises the scary
Speaker 1: question of espionage once again, but in this case it
Speaker 1: wasn't about targeting US citizens. Rather, a former Byte Dance
Speaker 1: employee alleged that representatives of the Chinese Communist Party were
Speaker 1: able to access TikTok's data in an effort to track
Speaker 1: the activities of protesters in Hong Kong. This information came
Speaker 1: out as part of a wrongful termination lawsuit brought against
Speaker 1: By Dance by Jintao Yu, who was a former engineer
Speaker 1: with TikTok. By Dance officials denied the charges, and they
Speaker 1: also pointed out that you had made no such claims
Speaker 1: in the immediate wake of his termination, because this was
Speaker 1: happening five years after you had been fired. That he
Speaker 1: was bringing forth these allegations that Chinese Communist Party was
Speaker 1: able to use TikTok to track protesters in Hong Kong,
Speaker 1: and presumably by extension, you could say, well, if they
Speaker 1: can do that with protesters in Hong Kong, why couldn't
Speaker 1: they do that to say, citizens in other countries as well.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of questionable activity going on here.
Speaker 1: There is the question of if it did happened, why
Speaker 1: did you wait five years to bring this up. Is
Speaker 1: it just in an effort for you to get a
Speaker 1: positive outcome in your wrongful termination lawsuit? Or is it
Speaker 1: that you're telling the truth and that TikTok and Byte
Speaker 1: Dance have been not telling the truth and have tried
Speaker 1: to put a veil up over the fact that the
Speaker 1: Communist Party can access TikTok. These are questions we don't
Speaker 1: have answers to yet. So does that mean TikTok serves
Speaker 1: as an information gathering service for the Chinese Communist Party?
Speaker 1: It beats me, But in some ways it doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: because the belief that this could happen appears to be
Speaker 1: more than enough to raise concern in political circles within
Speaker 1: the US and beyond. So whether it can or does
Speaker 1: do this is almost immaterial. It's the perception that matters,
Speaker 1: because that's what's driving a lot of political action against TikTok.
Speaker 1: Various government agencies and organizations have been banning TikTok off
Speaker 1: of work smartphones for a few years at this point.
Speaker 1: Late in twenty twenty two, President Biden signed a bill
Speaker 1: into law that would ban TikTok off merely all smartphones
Speaker 1: owned by US federal government employees. That is actual federal
Speaker 1: owned smartphones, right, So if you're issued a phone as
Speaker 1: a federal employee, you're not supposed to put TikTok on
Speaker 1: that phone. Your own personal phone, that's a different matter.
Speaker 1: The state of Montana was the first state in the
Speaker 1: US to pass a law that would actually ban TikTok
Speaker 1: on all personal devices in the state. There are questions
Speaker 1: as to how that would be enforced, how that would
Speaker 1: actually work. The law was not meant to go into
Speaker 1: effect until January of twenty twenty four, so it's not
Speaker 1: in effect right now. And in November, a federal judge
Speaker 1: threw up a ten temporary block on the law out
Speaker 1: of concern that it violates the First Amendment and says
Speaker 1: until that matter is decided, this law cannot go into effect,
Speaker 1: so essentially saying we need to have discussions about whether
Speaker 1: or not a ban on TikTok is a First Amendment violation,
Speaker 1: but not all judges see it as being that, you know,
Speaker 1: whibly wobbly or shade of gray. The state of Texas
Speaker 1: issued a ban on state employee devices, so again not
Speaker 1: a ban across all devices in the state, but if
Speaker 1: you're a state employee and you have a smartphone that
Speaker 1: was issued to you by the state, you're not supposed
Speaker 1: to put TikTok on it. However, Texas's ban goes beyond
Speaker 1: just the state issued smartphones. They say that if you
Speaker 1: use your personal device to conduct state business, well that
Speaker 1: applies too. So if you have your own personal device
Speaker 1: and you do, I don't know you access your email,
Speaker 1: your work email on your personal device, I guess you
Speaker 1: could argue, well, you're using this for state business, so
Speaker 1: you cannot put TikTok on your own personal phone. In
Speaker 1: that case, this led to the Night First Amendment Institute
Speaker 1: at Columbia University. Night in that case is spelled Knight.
Speaker 1: This organization filed a federal lawsuit against the state of
Speaker 1: Texas in an effort to strike down the ban on
Speaker 1: the grounds of the First Amendment. So this group was
Speaker 1: arguing that the band was having a negative effect on
Speaker 1: state school faculty who needed to be able to access TikTok,
Speaker 1: either to research the app because they're actually doing active
Speaker 1: research on it, or to teach about TikTok in their classrooms.
Speaker 1: But a federal judge disagreed with the argument and allowed
Speaker 1: the band to stay in place. They essentially said that
Speaker 1: the lawsuit lacked the proper grounds to have it struck down.
Speaker 1: Beyond the concern around surveillance and espionage, there are worries
Speaker 1: that TikTok is warping young minds. There's been a growing
Speaker 1: movement that has argued that TikTok's algorithm is pushing specific
Speaker 1: points of view onto the young people who are using it.
Speaker 1: So the most recent example of this, it's not the
Speaker 1: only one, but it is very recent, has grown out
Speaker 1: of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Some politicians have
Speaker 1: been arguing that TikTok has its algorithm biased against Israel
Speaker 1: and is pushing pro Palestinian propaganda, as it were, to
Speaker 1: young people, but some independent research suggests that that's just
Speaker 1: not the case. TikTok's algorithm doesn't appear to favor any
Speaker 1: particular political perspective. Rather, TikTok's algorithm serves content up to
Speaker 1: users that is most likely to keep those users on TikTok. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, TikTok really to doesn't care what you believe.
Speaker 1: It just wants you to stay on TikTok. It almost
Speaker 1: comes across sinister when you put it that way, that
Speaker 1: they don't really care what your world view is. They
Speaker 1: care that you stay on the app for as long
Speaker 1: as possible, which kind of falls in line with all
Speaker 1: the other social media platforms there. Right, It's all about
Speaker 1: engagement and keeping you there for as long as possible,
Speaker 1: because every moment you're somewhere else, you're not making money
Speaker 1: for TikTok. Okay, I've got more to say about TikTok's
Speaker 1: year in twenty twenty three, but before we get to that,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break to thank our sponsors. We're back,
Speaker 1: all right. We're now brought up to the matter of
Speaker 1: the state of Indiana versus tech Talk. Now, technically, Indiana
Speaker 1: actually brought a pair of lawsuits against TikTok in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, but then those two cases sort of consolidated
Speaker 1: into a single lawsuit and played out over the course
Speaker 1: of this year and only recently kind of came to
Speaker 1: a head. Much of the lawsuits were focused on the
Speaker 1: alleged harm TikTok can cause, and that the app had
Speaker 1: somehow violated child safety laws. TikTok tried to get the
Speaker 1: case moved to a federal court, but it was ultimately
Speaker 1: remanded to state court. However, that didn't matter because a
Speaker 1: state judge actually just dismissed the case, and in doing so,
Speaker 1: gave a lengthy explanation as to why the matter had
Speaker 1: no place in a state court in Indiana. So the
Speaker 1: dismissal it's quite long. You can read it online and
Speaker 1: it is very informative. But among the issues the judge
Speaker 1: cited was that there was no evidence TikTok had targeted
Speaker 1: Indiana or anyone in it, and so Indiana didn't really
Speaker 1: have jurisdiction over this case. They also said that, well,
Speaker 1: the it's in the lawsuit that bring up the matter
Speaker 1: of TikTok's relationship to Bite Dance doesn't really constitute a
Speaker 1: legal issue. That the state failed to present any evidence
Speaker 1: that this relationship was in some way breaking the law.
Speaker 1: Just because there is a relationship doesn't mean that it's
Speaker 1: a matter for the courts. The judge also said that
Speaker 1: the state failed to bring forth any credible evidence that
Speaker 1: TikTok had committed any kind of fraud, among other things.
Speaker 1: So in this battle, victory goes to TikTok. Now, I
Speaker 1: do understand the concern about TikTok and its capacity to
Speaker 1: amplify messages though again, that amplification comes from an algorithm
Speaker 1: that doesn't really care what the message is. You could
Speaker 1: argue that that's a problem because it also doesn't care
Speaker 1: if the message is true or not right. TikTok doesn't
Speaker 1: care if what you're posting is fake news other than
Speaker 1: the fact that it looked bad on TikTok, and so
Speaker 1: they do have an incentive to try and weed that
Speaker 1: stuff out, but the algorithm doesn't care well. Pew Research
Speaker 1: Center conducted a survey this year and found that nearly
Speaker 1: a third of all Americans between the ages of eighteen
Speaker 1: and twenty nine are relying on TikTok in part for
Speaker 1: their news, and more than forty percent of TikTok users
Speaker 1: in general said that they consume news on the platform. Obviously,
Speaker 1: that makes TikTok a powerful communications tool, and if you're
Speaker 1: clever enough to craft videos that really resonate, you could
Speaker 1: leverage this to spread all sorts of information or misinformation
Speaker 1: for that matter. So I do understand the concern around
Speaker 1: the platform. It has the capacity to do great harm
Speaker 1: if misused and if no one steps in to intervene.
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure if any of that stuff actually
Speaker 1: borders on the illegal or that it makes it that
Speaker 1: much different from other existing social network sites. So if
Speaker 1: you're really concerned about TikTok's impact, you need to look
Speaker 1: beyond TikTok. Outside of TikTok's constant battle to not get
Speaker 1: banned out of existence, there have been a few other
Speaker 1: stories about the platform this year. One is that back
Speaker 1: in November, TikTok released an announcement revealing that it was
Speaker 1: bringing the two billion dollar Creator Fund to an end.
Speaker 1: So the company had launched the Creator Fund in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: and the whole purpose was to serve as a source
Speaker 1: of money for folks who are making content on the platform,
Speaker 1: because monetizing your work on TikTok was tricky. You could
Speaker 1: maybe land a sponsorship, but that's sort of being paid
Speaker 1: outside the platform itself. Right, how do you make money
Speaker 1: through TikTok? Like in other platforms such as YouTube, they
Speaker 1: run ads against your content and you get a share
Speaker 1: of the ad revenue. That isn't how tikto works. So
Speaker 1: TikTok needs content to serve to users. Otherwise there's nothing
Speaker 1: there and there's no reason to use the app, and
Speaker 1: the creators would probably like some sort of compensation for it.
Speaker 1: You can't just depend upon brilliant people making amazing videos
Speaker 1: for free forever. That's not going to work. But critics
Speaker 1: said the fund wasn't actually solving any of TikTok's challenges,
Speaker 1: that it was an outdated approach even when it launched,
Speaker 1: you know, back in twenty twenty, and many claimed that
Speaker 1: despite having videos with millions of views, they were actually
Speaker 1: making very very little money at all from them. I
Speaker 1: think Hank Green said that for every one thousand views
Speaker 1: of a video he got, he would receive two point
Speaker 1: five cents, which is not a great return. TikTok's replacement
Speaker 1: for the Creator Fund is the Creativity Program, which the
Speaker 1: company said would offer more substantial revenue opportunities for users,
Speaker 1: but they do have to meet certain criteria. The videos
Speaker 1: they produce need to be more than a minute long,
Speaker 1: so they can't be these super short videos that just
Speaker 1: go viral, and they have to rack up at least
Speaker 1: a thousand views before they can be considered viable for
Speaker 1: part of the Creativity Program. Of course, beyond all these stories,
Speaker 1: we get to TikTok's impact on culture, everything from the
Speaker 1: return of the Roman Empire to girl Dinner owes its
Speaker 1: virality to TikTok, and since I don't use TikTok, and
Speaker 1: because I'm old and I'm out of touch, I'm not
Speaker 1: entirely sure what those things have to do with anything anyway,
Speaker 1: Like the whole thing about guys think about the Roman
Speaker 1: Empire more than girls do. Maybe, I mean, I haven't
Speaker 1: thought about the Roman Empire in a long time, except
Speaker 1: when I was reading a history about English monarchs, because
Speaker 1: of course that starts with the fall of the Roman Empire.
Speaker 1: But whatever. Anyway, by the time I'm aware of a trend,
Speaker 1: it's ancient history. So there's no point of me even
Speaker 1: diving into this any further. It'll just be cringey. Anyway,
Speaker 1: as we in the United States head into an election year,
Speaker 1: I'm sure we're going to see a lot more rhetoric
Speaker 1: around TikTok. Honestly, it's a very easy target, with a
Speaker 1: Chinese parent company and an incredible adoption rate among younger users,
Speaker 1: as well as the fact that people are depending upon
Speaker 1: it to get news content. It's just the sort of
Speaker 1: thing that politicians like to lean on when they try
Speaker 1: to position themselves as being concerned for our well being.
Speaker 1: TikTok is the boogeyman that politicians can point to. It's
Speaker 1: a lot easier to target TikTok and call it scary
Speaker 1: and say that it's a threat to our personal and
Speaker 1: national security. It's a lot easier to do that than
Speaker 1: it is to do something about the serious underlying issues
Speaker 1: that span well beyond a single platform. So I'm talking
Speaker 1: about stuff like a comprehensive data privacy and security policy
Speaker 1: that would put control of personal information back in the
Speaker 1: hands of the people that the information is actually about,
Speaker 1: as opposed to a sort of wild West anything goes
Speaker 1: market that exists today in the United States. Right now,
Speaker 1: we have very little control over our personal information, which
Speaker 1: in my mind is a huge, huge, huge problem because
Speaker 1: even if you don't have TikTok. Right let's say that
Speaker 1: we did ban TikTok entirely and got rid of this
Speaker 1: supposed asset for the Chinese Communist Party, nothing is stopping
Speaker 1: the Chinese Communist Party from going to data brokers and
Speaker 1: just buying information wholesale about citizens, the places they work,
Speaker 1: maybe even information about the places they work conducting espionage
Speaker 1: that way, Like, that's entirely possible with no TikTok in
Speaker 1: the world. Whatsoever. So really, I argue we need to
Speaker 1: focus on that more than this one instance of social
Speaker 1: networking that I think scares old people because young people
Speaker 1: like it so much. And I am an old person,
Speaker 1: and yeah, TikTok freaks me out, but it doesn't freak
Speaker 1: me out more than say Facebook or x slash Twitter.
Speaker 1: I think TikTok's going to have another tough year in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, but it's held on so far, so
Speaker 1: maybe it'll weather the storm's just fine and just keep
Speaker 1: ticking along and talking along. I guess. Meanwhile, I'm sure
Speaker 1: the next big platform is just around the corner, and
Speaker 1: when it comes out, it will scare the pants off
Speaker 1: old folks even more than TikTok does. And so it is.
Speaker 1: So that's sort of a look back on how TikTok's
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three played out. That's an ongoing story, clearly.
Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll keep an eye on it next year.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, I hope that all of you are
Speaker 1: well and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech
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