WEBVTT - TikTok Ban & Boeing Troubles 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:08.000 This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:13.200 Is time ticking away for TikTok? Or is it just 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:17.480 another step in a year's long tech drama. The wildly 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:21.320 popular short video app used by one hundred seventy million 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:25.640 Americans is facing its most serious challenge to date, a 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:29.600 bill that would require its parent company, Chinese tech giant 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:33.479 Fyte Edance, to divest itself of the popular video service 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:37.360 in the US or remove the app from the country altogether. 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.479 That bill passed by a vote of three hundred fifty 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:43.440 two to sixty five on Wednesday in the House and 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:47.199 now goes to the Senate. Lawmakers cite privacy risks and 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:52.320 national security fears over the Chinese Communist Party's perceived ability 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:57.120 to use personal information for political gains or manipulation. Here's 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:00.639 North Carolina Republican Senator Tom tillis, we. 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:04.000 Have to recognize that information on any of these platforms 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:07.560 are at risk of going to the Chinese Communist Party. 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:09.600 So this is one step in one. I thinks a 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.000 long journey to hold China accountable. 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:16.560 But others like Republican Congressman Tom McClintock of California are 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:20.000 concerned that the US is going down a dangerous path. 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:26.800 The answer to CCPA style propaganda is not CCPA style oppression. 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:30.959 Let us slow down before we blunder down this very 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:32.560 steep and slippery slope. 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:36.960 And TikTok Ceo showed you promised a fight that includes 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:37.640 the courts. 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.319 We will continue to do all we can, including exercising 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:42.400 all legal rights. 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.200 That's something the company did last time in twenty twenty, 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:50.480 when then President Donald Trump ordered by Dance to sell TikTok. 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:53.720 My guest is Eric Goleman, a professor at Santa Clara 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:57.000 University Law School and co director of its High Tech 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:01.960 Law Institute. Eric explained why so many lawmakers are concerned 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:04.360 about TikTok and it's Chinese parent. 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:09.200 A lot of the legislatures object to TikTok principally because 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:13.600 of the fact that it's related to China, and there's 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:19.000 such senophobia among our country that it becomes a very 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:23.000 politically popular move to tweak China. So it's not so 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:28.880 much that the representatives care about the privacy issues. They 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:33.640 care about China, and they're signaling that to their voters. 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:39.400 They point to Chinese national security law that forces companies 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:44.160 to turn over information when compelled to do so. TikTok 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:48.679 CEO show Chu said that TikTok has never shared or 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:52.639 received request to share US user data with the Chinese government, 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:57.320 and he said that information on TikTok's American users had 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:01.959 been moved to US servers run by Texas based company Oracle, 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:04.440 and that under the new structure there's no way for 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:08.280 the Chinese government to access it or compel access to it. 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:11.760 So is that just a false premise or is there 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.600 something to be concerned about in general? 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:17.680 I think we should be concerned about government access to 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.680 our private information online, but I don't restrict my concern 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:24.560 to China. I feel that way about all governments across 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:28.080 the globe, including here in the United States, where government 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:32.440 agencies have a variety of ways about taining private online 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:35.720 communications that in fact we would prefer that they don't 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:39.800 have access to. Indeed, Europe cut off data flows with 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:43.320 the United States because of the concern in Europe that 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:47.360 the US government had access to European private information online. 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:52.040 So if that's the concern, then trying to target China 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.360 and doing it in this way is really an indirect solution. 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.560 We really ought to have a broad society wide conversation 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:02.040 about when government to have access to private citizen data 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:04.240 and what we're going to do to protect the interest 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:05.200 of private citizens. 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:08.000 So tell us about this bill what it would do. 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:12.920 The bill is styled as a divestiture law. The idea 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:15.840 is to get the ownership of TikTok out of the 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:20.279 hands of people related to China. In practice, it's almost 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:23.880 certainly going to turn into a TikTok ban. It would 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:26.960 ban TikTok in the United States and require app stores 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:31.560 not to allow the installation of TikTok. So it's trying 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:34.159 to just kick TikTok out of the US market. 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:37.960 So what the lawmakers are saying is that by dance, 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:42.920 the Chinese parent would have six months to divest TikTok. 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:46.280 Yeah, just to be clear, nobody expects that to really 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:49.960 be the outcome. There's a limited number of people who 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:54.159 might be interested in buying TikTok, and the forced sale 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:56.640 would almost certainly depress the prices. But I want to 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.279 analogize this to what happened after the Ukrainian War, where 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:06.000 Russia put the squeeze on US owned enterprises and force 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.799 them to sell to Russian owners, and in so doing, 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.719 they transferred billions of dollars of wealth from the US 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:17.200 owners to new Russian owners who bought it pennies on 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:21.120 the dollar. And so essentially the Congress is doing what 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:25.240 Russia did to our companies, and that really seems like 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:27.000 the wrong inspiration for US to be. 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.920 Drawn from China. Beijing has warned that a ban would 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:35.159 ultimately backfire on the United States itself. So what could 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:35.760 they do there? 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.960 You know, we're locked in a long term strategic battle 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:45.000 of words and actions against China and some other global powers, 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:47.880 So there's an infinite number of ways in which China 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:52.040 could work to degrade the interest of US companies. Now, 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.400 of course, China has a long history of doing that. 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:58.640 They have literally kicked US companies out of the China market. 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.120 They could continue to tamp down on US interests in 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:05.840 China to the economic detriment of US interests, And these 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:09.680 kinds of trade wars or attempts to kick foreign companies 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:13.719 out of the markets ultimately erect barriers that make everyone poorer. 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:16.000 So let's hope that we don't go there. But no 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.520 doubt that the US would be sending a strong signal 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:21.919 to China. We're erecting another trade barrier. You know, we 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:23.159 expected retaliation. 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:28.679 China's Foreign ministry also said that there was a failure 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:31.719 to provide evidence that TikTok is a threat to the 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:35.960 US national security. I've heard a lot of blanket statements 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:38.799 that it's a threat, but is there actual proof. 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:44.240 So one of the big questions is exactly how is 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:48.360 TikTok a threat to national security? And there's been some 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:51.400 seculation about this, but the best evidence of this has 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:54.680 not been revealed to the public. It's only been disclosed privately, 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:58.799 with the justification that because it's in national security interests, 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.920 we couldn't tell the public we would jeopardize national security. 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.440 But that kind of rationale makes it impossible for us 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:09.480 to actually scrutinize credibly the evidence, and as a result, 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:13.000 it's possible that that evidence is not credible. And in fact, 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.240 the efforts to ban TikTok were initiated in the Trump 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:19.600 administration and some of the judges got to see that 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.560 evidence and they did not find a persuasive Now, maybe 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.000 there's new evidence that we haven't seen yet, but the 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:29.600 most likely scenario is that national security is being invoked 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:34.000 as a concept, not actually as pieces of specific credible 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:35.960 evidence to try and justify the ban. 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:41.360 The company TikTok has warned about the potential economic impact 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:44.960 on small business owners who depend on the app. It's 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:48.200 urged it's one hundred and seventy million US users to 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.960 speak out against it, and they have been influencers. Took 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:55.880 to Capital Hill on Wednesday. Members of Congress were flooded 0:07:55.960 --> 0:08:00.280 with calls from angry constituents and small business as are 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:03.560 saying a ban would crush their business. Do you think 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:07.200 it would have a severe economic impact on certain people? 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:10.400 It's not just the economic impact, although I think that's 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:13.960 a helpful way of establishing a measuring stick, but so 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:18.000 many communities rely upon TikTok to communicate with each other, 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:23.760 and that can create new stars, celebrities, influencers who wouldn't 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:26.360 have had a voice any other way that are actually 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:29.600 quite helpful to the communities that they're speaking to. It 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:34.000 also has created a variety of different small business opportunities 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:36.800 where new entrants to a market can use social media, 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:40.760 including TikTok, in order to gain traction against incumbents who 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.560 otherwise would rather not give them any opportunity to grow. 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:47.000 So When Congress says that we want to ban TikTok, 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:49.840 what they're really saying is we don't want people talking 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:52.600 to each other in that way, and we don't care 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.280 that sometimes that's the very best way for those people 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:59.360 to help self actualize or the very best way for 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.480 those entre to help build their business. So Congress is 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:04.480 just saying, we'll care about any of that, all of 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:08.160 that we're willing to forego in this nebulous chasing of 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:10.120 the quote national security interest. 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:14.240 Eric, I am not on TikTok. I confess, is it 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:18.400 really this unique platform? Because hearing people talk about it, 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:22.400 they say, this is the only way I can accomplish 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:25.560 this goal, whether it's business or reaching out to people. 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:27.400 Is it really that unique? 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:31.560 It doesn't really matter if TikTok is unique compared to 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:35.199 other social media. What matters is that there's certain types 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:38.520 of communities that have developed on TikTok that don't exist 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:42.280 in the other social media, and so by eliminating those communities, 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:45.560 even if you could publish the exact same content on 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:48.760 social media, you can't reach the same audience in the 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:51.600 same way. Now I don't personally use TikTok, it doesn't 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.440 speak to me, But for those who it speaks to, 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.240 it is perhaps the best way to reach them, the 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:00.640 best way to engage them. And so it isn't something 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:04.560 where we could simply tell the content publisher and the 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:08.000 audience just move your conversation another social media that literally 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:10.800 wouldn't happen, That relationship would bust up instead. 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:15.360 Does it seem as if the Senate is not as 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:18.040 enthrall with this bill as the House was. 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:20.480 We don't know what's going to happen to the bill 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:25.280 in the Senate. The Senate leaders have created equivocation about 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:28.480 the bill, but the political calculus that got the bill 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:31.320 through the House is the same for the Senate. In 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.960 all cases, there's political gold for beating up on China 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:38.520 legitimately or not. So I don't think that the bill 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:42.079 will die in the Senate easily. It will be given 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:45.600 a fair amount of push I think forward. But there 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:48.160 are a number of senators I think we understand both 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.520 the ridiculousness of the justifications of the bill as well 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:53.880 as the fact that in the end, the bill is 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:56.320 a censorship bill, and I think there are some senators 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:57.560 who just can't support that. 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:02.600 And some lawmakers did say that the United States shouldn't 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:07.880 be following China in selectively blocking social media platforms citing 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:09.240 free speech concerns. 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:12.839 I mean, it sounds so weird to say we should 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:16.640 not be ripping the playbook off of from authoritarian countries 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:20.280 and then justifying our actions by because they're doing it 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:23.280 like that, Just to me is so obvious, such a 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.960 baseline foundational assumption in how I proceed, and yet it 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:28.240 is not obvious in the house. 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:30.959 Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, I'll continue 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:34.800 this conversation with Professor Eric Goleman of Santa Clara University 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:37.400 Law School. TikTok says it will fight the bill in 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:39.720 the courts. What are some of the legal grounds it 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:44.000 could use? And later in the show, the accident investigation 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:48.720 into that Alaska Airlines mid air emergency in January is 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:53.080 being slowed down by Boeing's failure to cooperate. Remember, you 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:55.320 can always get the latest legal news by listening to 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:58.280 our Bloomberg Law podcasts. You can get them wherever you 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:04.360 get your favorite podcasts, and you're listening to Bloomberg. TikTok 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:07.760 is used by one hundred and seventy million Americans, so 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:11.600 it's no wonder that after TikTok urged them on, angry 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:15.480 users flooded members of Congress with calls over a bill 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:18.240 that would lead to a nationwide ban of the popular 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:21.840 video app if it's China based owner doesn't sell at stake. 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:25.480 Here's the bill's author, Wisconsin Republican Mike Gallagher. 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:27.800 It's also based on a lie. They're saying we're pushing 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:30.520 an outright ban of TikTok, which is not true. It's 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:33.760 not actually what the bill does. It forces a divestiture. 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:38.680 But users, influencers, social media content creators, and small business 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:42.920 owners weren't buying it. Brandon Hurst, who sells plants on TikTok, 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:45.679 lobbied lawmakers not to pass the bill. 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:48.360 My whole business would be devastated. Yeah, I would lose 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:50.800 the opportunity to connect with millions of people on a 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.720 regular basis, and the community that I've worked really hard 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:55.680 to build would be would be gone. 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:59.720 But the bill passed the House with overwhelming bipartisan support 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:02.400 and now goes on to the Senate. I've been talking 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:06.680 to Professor Eric Goleman of Santa Clara University School of Law. Eric, 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:09.600 let's say that some version of the bill is enacted, 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:14.320 TikTok says it plans to exhaust all legal challenges before 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:19.360 it considers divestiture. What kind of legal challenges could TikTok bring. 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:22.520 Yeah, no doubt that if the bill is enacted, it 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:24.800 will be challenged in court, and it will be challenged 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:27.720 by TikTok. It's also probable that it will be challenged 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:32.199 by users of TikTok expressing their own free speech concerns 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:35.280 independent of the concerns that TikTok has, and the bill 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.199 will also impact the app stores, and it's possible that 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.240 they will point out that the bill impacts their free 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:43.800 speech as well. So there are at least three different 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.560 communities that have concerns about how the bill would restrict 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:51.440 their speech, and we actually have some indication of how 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:53.880 those legal challenges might look. This is not the first 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:57.240 time that efforts to ban social media apps have been 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:01.360 attempted and have been challenged in court. Both in the 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:05.160 Trump administration, there was a ban on TikTok and we chat, 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:08.480 and then states have been enacting bands, including an illegal 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:11.480 challenge was filed against one in Montana, and all of 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:15.080 those efforts to ban in the past have failed, including 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:19.360 on First Amendment grounds, those bands were unconstitutional, and so 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.240 it seems to me that TikTok and its users and 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:25.480 maybe the answers have pretty good reasons to think that 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:27.520 they might win a First Amendment challenge. 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:31.760 Tell us more about the possible First Amendment challenges from 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:33.680 those three communities you mentioned. 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.400 So let's talk about TikTok's interest under the First Amendment. 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.560 TikTok operates a service that other people's used to talk 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:44.320 to each other, and sometimes there's been discussion that TikTok 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.400 doesn't have its own First Amendment interest. It's just a 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:52.240 vessel for other communications. But TikTok publishes content in the 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:54.920 form of the software that offers to its users, and 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:58.480 it curates users speech in a way that communicates its 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:03.160 editorial Priorities and courts have recognized that TikTok has a 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.280 speech interest in the publication of the software and in 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:10.000 the way in which it curates its content for its users. 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:13.040 So there's some serious First Amendment issues that I think 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:16.400 are raised when you tell a service that the government's 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:20.560 going to come in and override its its curatorial discretion. 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:23.960 I want to talk about the TikTok users interest for 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:27.760 the First Amendment. The TikTok users are talking to each other, 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:31.920 and they are creating conversations that don't exist in the 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.760 same way to the same audience anywhere else in the 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:39.240 information ecosystem, and so taking away TikTok takes away their 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.960 ability to engage with each other. If you're content publisher 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.440 in TikTok, it takes away your ability to create your 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:48.520 own audience and speak with them in the way you choose, 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.920 And so that impacts their First Amendment interests. And looking 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:54.240 back to the app stores, the app stores have not 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:59.320 previously taken the leadership on challenging the constitutionality of TikTok 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:03.160 bands or bands of social media, but they're actually harmed 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:07.040 by the TikTok band bill as well. And let me 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.800 give an analogy of how we might think about their interests. 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:14.600 The ban is kind of like telling a bookstore that 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:17.160 they can't carry a particular book. They can still run 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:19.840 a bookstore, but they just can't carry a book. And 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.160 so for the app store, they're being told you have 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:26.200 to pull an app off of your shelves. And by 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.720 forcing the bookstore or in this case, the app store 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:32.560 to change what it wants to offer to its users 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:37.040 that encroaches on the app store speech interests as well. 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:41.000 So there are three different each interests to play here, TikTok's, 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:44.960 TikTok users, and the app stores. And I think each 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:46.760 of them has very good reason to point to the 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:50.640 Constitution and say that the ban hurts their ability to 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:51.800 speak the way they choose. 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:57.160 TikTok is banned on federal devices, and Biden administration officials 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.720 help with the bill's technical language. But by re election 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:06.000 campaign joined TikTok last month, I mean talk about irony. 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.040 Biden's presence on TikTok is a reminder that even if 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.720 Biden could reach audiences through other channels, there's value to 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:17.400 reach them through TikTok. And it is that exact political 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:21.560 speech benefit that shows how corrupt it is to try 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:25.800 and ban TikTok. It literally would suppress valuable political speech 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:28.440 coming from the president who would potentially sign to build 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:28.840 a bandit. 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:35.440 Former President Donald Trump, surprise surprise, has flip flopped on TikTok. Recently, 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:38.800 he's expressed his opposition to the ban. Do you think 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:42.320 that this could be an issue in the presidential election. 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:46.480 Trump's flip flopping on TikTok is really quite shocking. He 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.640 made a concerted effort to try to force the exact 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:53.919 same moves that the House enacted while he was in office, 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:57.880 but he didn't sway a lot of his loyal fans. 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:02.320 Only fifteen Republicans voted against the TikTok band despite Trump 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:05.320 asking him to do so, so the vast majority of 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:09.439 Republicans didn't heed his requests. Though I don't really know 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:11.919 how serious anyone's taking him on this topic. 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:16.120 You know, I thought that in all the discussion about TikTok, 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:20.720 there might be some discussion about how it's harmful to 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:25.240 young adults. You know, we had those lawsuits by parents. 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:29.400 Yeah. So the effort to ban TikTok is a very 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:33.320 small corner of the broader tech lash, the effort among 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:37.960 regulators to try to suppress and control social media generally. 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:40.920 And there's a wide list of gripes against social media 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:44.560 that regulators have lobbed, of which privacy is a non 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:47.040 trivial one. But there are other concerns as well, including 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:51.359 the concerns about the impact of social media on teenage 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:54.800 and younger users. But in this sense, the TikTok ban 0:18:54.960 --> 0:19:00.000 is not really about protecting the users. Although nominally it's 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:02.560 about protecting their privacy, it always comes back to the 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:06.960 idea it's China that's doing these nefarious things, and if 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:10.520 it had been a British company owning TikTok who did 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:12.639 the exact same things that China was doing, we wouldn't 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:14.720 even be hearing a peep about this. And it's just 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:17.240 a reminder that all the efforts that are taking place 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.960 to ban TikTok are not about protecting users. They really 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:22.640 are just political gamesmanship. 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:26.800 Have any of those lawsuits by parents reached a motion 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:31.720 to dismiss stage or have been settled or any important 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:32.920 rulings yet. 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:36.560 Yeah, a number of the lawsuits against TikTok for harming 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:41.520 their users, including underage users, have been dismissed outright. Some 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.919 of those are on appeal, but there's a very large 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.399 pair of cases in California courts that have not reached 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.119 a final judgment on the question, and so those are 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.240 really going to dictate whether or not there's going to 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:56.120 be legal traction to the claims against TikTok. 0:19:56.880 --> 0:19:59.679 While we're on the topic, across the pond, as they say, 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:04.400 there's a battle over one of Britain's most famous newspapers, 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:08.760 and the government has outlined plans to stop foreign states 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.040 from owning newspapers. 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:14.359 And the target there was some US buyers were planned 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:16.520 to buy up one of the leading newspapers in the 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:21.280 UK that caters to the conservative audience, and the members 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:25.280 of the legislature there didn't want to see the newspaper 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:27.399 fall into the hands of US interests, and it was 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:30.320 a reminder that here in the United States, we would 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:35.000 not tolerate an effort to ban or control the identity 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.639 of owners of a newspaper. That would be clearly a 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:42.280 First Amendment objection because it would be dictating who gets 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:44.760 the right to speak in our country. And believe it 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:50.159 or not, foreign speakers have protected constitutional rights to speak 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:53.240 here in the United States, So there would not be 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:58.280 the possibility of establishing controls over who owned a newspaper 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.960 here in the US, unlike other countries like Britain, where 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:03.919 literally they're proposed to that, but they don't have the 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.600 First Amendment, they can pass laws like that with the 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:10.119 intent and objective of controlling who gets to speak in 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:13.359 their country. We wouldn't tolerate that here. 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:18.000 What about the regulation of broadcast ownership in the US. 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:20.879 Back to this ish about foreign ownership over media in 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:23.960 the United States, Now, there is one area where there 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:28.120 is the right of the government to control who owns 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:32.000 the media that reaches the public, and that's in the 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:36.720 area of broadcasting. We limit the ability of foreign owners 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:41.359 to own broadcasting stations in the United States, and I 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:46.120 believe that that's constitutional. Now, even though we allow the 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:51.480 regulation of broadcast ownership, that doesn't extend to the ownership 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:55.600 of online services, even if they're broadcasting video, just like 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:59.359 the broadcasters do who are regulated by the SEC. And 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:03.600 that's because of nineteen ninety seven court opinion that said 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:06.520 that the rules that apply to broadcasting are not the 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:08.480 same as the rules that apply to the Internet, that 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:14.520 the reasons why we control the access to broadcasting don't 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:17.679 extend to why we might permit people to speak on 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:20.919 the Internet. So there are rules about foreign ownership of 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:23.680 media here in the US that might very well be constitutional, 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:27.160 and yet they don't extend to a ban on TikTok 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:29.520 because the Internet is not like broadcasting. 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:32.040 Thank you so much, Eric, This has been a tour 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:36.000 de force. We covered so many different topics. That's Professor 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:39.520 Eric Goldman of Santa Clara University Law School and co 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:43.400 director of the High Tech Law Institute. In other legal news, today, 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:47.960 Donald Trump's first criminal trial may not begin on March 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:51.600 twenty fifth, as planned, after lawyers for the Manhattan District 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:55.200 Attorney and the former president told a judge they'd received 0:22:55.320 --> 0:23:00.560 thousands of new pages of evidence from Federal prosecutors Office 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:04.000 said today that some thirty one thousand pages of records 0:23:04.280 --> 0:23:08.240 tied to former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's federal campaign finance 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:12.280 convictions were turned over to their office on Wednesday, adding 0:23:12.280 --> 0:23:14.679 that they would not object to a thirty day delay 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:18.200 in the start of Trump's hush money trial. Bragg blamed 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:21.280 Trump for the delay of the production of documents, saying 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:25.480 the defense waited until January eighteenth to issue a subpoena 0:23:25.520 --> 0:23:29.400 for more materials. The potential delay is the latest good 0:23:29.520 --> 0:23:32.920 news in court for Trump, who had faced the prospect 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:36.640 of up to four criminal trials before the November presidential election. 0:23:36.960 --> 0:23:40.200 Three of those cases now might slip into next year. 0:23:40.720 --> 0:23:43.640 Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, we'll look 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:49.040