Speaker 1: Now really.
Speaker 2: Really now really hello, and welcome to really know really
Speaker 2: with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden, who asked, isn't it
Speaker 2: really time you subscribe to our show time? As in
Speaker 2: TikTok and amazingly. On this episode, we discuss TikTok, the
Speaker 2: video hosting platform owned by the Chinese company Fight Dance,
Speaker 2: and whether or not it should be banned in the
Speaker 2: United States, as many in Congress are trying to do.
Speaker 3: We're joined by.
Speaker 2: One of the foremost experts on the topic.
Speaker 3: Bruce Schneier.
Speaker 2: We'll discuss how spying, manipulation, and misinformation are at the
Speaker 2: heart of the to ban or not to ban issue,
Speaker 2: and whether TikTok is really any different from meta Google
Speaker 2: or x.
Speaker 3: We'll also cover.
Speaker 2: How surveillance as a business model is actually one hundred
Speaker 2: percent legal, how social media's ability to manipulate you is
Speaker 2: much greater than you think, why data privacy is a
Speaker 2: national security issue that isn't treated like one, and lastly,
Speaker 2: cougar hemorrhoids.
Speaker 3: You heard me, folks, cougar hemorrhoids. Really, no, really, here's
Speaker 3: Jason and Peter.
Speaker 1: An This episode is about TikTok, because which I know
Speaker 1: nothing about it. I saw that the majority of Americans
Speaker 1: state TikTok is a threat to national security. And then
Speaker 1: you know me, I read a lot in prep and
Speaker 1: then there's articles that say.
Speaker 4: Oh, why that makes me laugh. TikTok is the threat
Speaker 4: that security. Yeah, and then I read articles to say
Speaker 4: it's not. And then meanwhile, India has banned it two
Speaker 4: different times. They have the chairman of.
Speaker 1: TikTok who just testified the congressional hero are observation the
Speaker 1: congresional hero. First of all, you have congress people who
Speaker 1: are interviewing who are borderline to seased and like they're
Speaker 1: a step away. Their families have already made plans. They're
Speaker 1: that old, they've been there that long. Yeah, they have
Speaker 1: no idea about social media, none, not none. So this
Speaker 1: guy's there. You do the line of questioning that we
Speaker 1: love the most about the chairman of TikTok testify, But.
Speaker 5: Miss chairman, are you a member of the Chinese Communist Party?
Speaker 1: No, I'm from Singapore.
Speaker 3: But are you a member?
Speaker 5: Are you now or have you?
Speaker 3: Where? And where do you currently reside?
Speaker 1: And if i'm if I'm the CEO of TikTok, I'm
Speaker 1: looking at him and here's the bubble that are over
Speaker 1: my head. You knew I was coming, right, You have staff,
Speaker 1: couldn't google me? Yeah? The other question, this is why
Speaker 1: we wanted an expert on. This guy is a big
Speaker 1: time expert coming on. So they're worried the TikTok's going
Speaker 1: to take our information. Can't TikTok just call Facebook and
Speaker 1: say you got it?
Speaker 3: Already got it?
Speaker 5: And I'm going to ask our guy, Brushneier. But now
Speaker 5: I'm not on TikTok, but I am on Instagram. I'm
Speaker 5: on Instagram and our show is on all the platforms.
Speaker 5: When we created an account for the show, what the
Speaker 5: information did we have to surrender to them? What did
Speaker 5: they know that that the Chinese government is going to
Speaker 5: feast on that?
Speaker 3: What? What? What did I give up? Can I tell
Speaker 3: you I put in my social Security number? Did I
Speaker 3: give them my my children's stock?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 3: What did I give them?
Speaker 1: That is a sycle? You're full of it, Because let's
Speaker 1: get our expert on Bush Schneier, who is called a
Speaker 1: security guru. This guy is testified in front of Congress.
Speaker 1: He's written tons of articles. He can tell us the
Speaker 1: really not really we're looking for today? Really if it's
Speaker 1: so dangerous, it's so horrible, why am I reading articles
Speaker 1: it says it's not dangerous, not horrible.
Speaker 3: Is TikTok dangerous or not really nice?
Speaker 1: Tell us already we want to really already, don't yanks around.
Speaker 1: Bruce Schneier has joined us. He is a security expert.
Speaker 1: He's written multitude of books. He's He's appeared in front
Speaker 1: of Congress about hacking, about tech. He's a fellow at
Speaker 1: the Brickman Klein Center for Internet Society at Harvard University.
Speaker 5: Lecture Harvard who my kid went to the yel so
Speaker 5: you know who I'll go.
Speaker 3: I'll give a who to Harvard, even though yeah.
Speaker 1: You don't know it's another So, mister Schneier, we want
Speaker 1: to have you on because this TikTok thing is confusing. You.
Speaker 1: Hear that most Americans think that it is an evil,
Speaker 1: horrible thing. I know that the company administration tried to
Speaker 1: ban it but couldn't. So welcome to the show. And
Speaker 1: what do we need to know about? What do we
Speaker 1: need to know about TikTok? That will clear up this
Speaker 1: question for the people listening.
Speaker 6: Probably not going to clear it up, but we could
Speaker 6: certainly talk about it. Okay, so let's start generally, all
Speaker 6: of these social media companies make their money spying on you. TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Speaker 6: every last one of them. Right, they spy on you,
Speaker 6: They know a lot about you, and they try tonipilate you. Right,
Speaker 6: they try to sell you stuff. That's their business model.
Speaker 6: So in that way, TikTok is no different than anybody else.
Speaker 6: On the other hand, TikTok is owned by the Chinese,
Speaker 6: which makes it different. Is a threat national security? I
Speaker 6: don't know is Facebook trans national security? Is there a
Speaker 6: difference that matters? Maybe it's actually complicated.
Speaker 5: But what do they Here's the thing that Peter don't know.
Speaker 3: We're talking about, what do they know about me?
Speaker 5: Like, I'm not on TikTok, but when I when I
Speaker 5: sign up for social media, I have to give them
Speaker 5: an email address.
Speaker 3: I have to give them very little information about me.
Speaker 6: But okay, Google, Google, Google knows what kind of porn
Speaker 6: you like. Okay, that's how you search for it, right.
Speaker 6: Google knows everything you hope, everything you fear, everything you searched.
Speaker 6: And these things are very intimate. You got a Google
Speaker 6: phart knows where you are at all times, knows who
Speaker 6: you're with, because you've all got a phone. These are
Speaker 6: the amount of information about us. Facebook famously knows your
Speaker 6: relations before you announce it. They knows if you're voted,
Speaker 6: know who you voted for, They know your sexual orientation
Speaker 6: on the things you do and post. These are very
Speaker 6: intimate portraits of us through our actions and tiktik, they
Speaker 6: know a lot about us, and the amount is kind
Speaker 6: of staggering. Those are a fortunate consumer ports she's a
Speaker 6: couple of weeks ago, and all the information Facebook buys
Speaker 6: from other companies to compile the dossiers. Assume TikTok is
Speaker 6: the same thing. They all do this and the Internet
Speaker 6: is built on spying. This is the most effective surveillance
Speaker 6: device you've ever seen.
Speaker 5: So are we concerned about let's say that it's a
Speaker 5: Chinese government is in fact spying on this in some way?
Speaker 5: Are we concerned about the metadata that we are giving
Speaker 5: to these people, or are we concerned literally that if
Speaker 5: they want to manipulate Jason Alexander, They're going to go
Speaker 5: into my profile, figure out what I'm vulnerable about and
Speaker 5: manipulate that.
Speaker 3: What's our bigger concern?
Speaker 6: Let's let's let's do them several. So let's let's talk
Speaker 6: about the spying first. Now, the Chinese government does a
Speaker 6: lot of spine and they were behind the Equal Facts
Speaker 6: data breach. Remember that one seventeen, under forty seven million
Speaker 6: credit records of Americans were stolen by the Chinese government.
Speaker 6: They were behind the Office of Personnel Management. I think
Speaker 6: that was a year later. This is the profiles of
Speaker 6: everybody with security clearance. They hacked Mariota Hotels. They told
Speaker 6: database the zoo stay and where. If you sort of
Speaker 6: look at this, they kind of want to know who
Speaker 6: comes in to their country. US a government employee. If
Speaker 6: you have all of this data, you could know a
Speaker 6: lot about individuals. And you can imagine US government wants
Speaker 6: this data. Chinese government, a lot of governments want this
Speaker 6: kind of data. So yes, you could easily imagine China
Speaker 6: collecting data on Americans through TikTok. You could also imagine
Speaker 6: them buying it by from Facebook, like Facebook sales all
Speaker 6: this stuff, so they don't need their on social network.
Speaker 6: So that's sort of data surveillance. So yeah, I think
Speaker 6: there's an issue here. Is it really different than Facebook
Speaker 6: or Twitter everybody else? Probably not?
Speaker 1: But wait, but wait, let me let me before you
Speaker 1: go into the other. The issue was that the Chinese government,
Speaker 1: if you have a Chinese company, which this is a
Speaker 1: Chinese company, can decide to do whatever they want, and
Speaker 1: then the Chinese government goes, we want your fine, we
Speaker 1: want your info, and they have to them.
Speaker 6: So of course, the same way when the US government
Speaker 6: asks Google or Apple or Facebook for data, the US
Speaker 6: government lead the companies give it to the US government.
Speaker 6: And you know, we know something about how these companies
Speaker 6: respond to data requests from countries around the planet, right,
Speaker 6: you know they do. We don't know to what extent
Speaker 6: they These companies respond to orders by the Chinese government
Speaker 6: for day US companies, but you're right, a Chinese company
Speaker 6: will respond quicker or effectively give it all right, like
Speaker 6: more under the control of Chinese governments. So that's definitely
Speaker 6: a concern. It's a matter of degree, not client. So
Speaker 6: that surveils Let's move to the other half. Manipulation, all right,
Speaker 6: we know that US companies engage in some manipulation. Facebook
Speaker 6: rand and experiment in mood alteration where they where they
Speaker 6: show that if they showed you happy posts by your friends,
Speaker 6: you'd be happier they showed you sad post you'd be sad.
Speaker 6: They showed that they were able to affect whether you
Speaker 6: voted or not by showing you posts of people you
Speaker 6: knew who also voted, or not showing you those. We
Speaker 6: don't know what extent the US companies manipulate, right which
Speaker 6: you only know Twitter. Make sure you see Musk's posts
Speaker 6: and the posts that he likes. So yes, you could
Speaker 6: easily imagine TikTok doing the same thing. And even though
Speaker 6: that malicious intent, it is clear that the algorithm sends
Speaker 6: people down rabbit holes of depression or you know, anxiety,
Speaker 6: or maybe even blissfulness and happiness I guess said is
Speaker 6: better than happy for engagement. So we know that, like
Speaker 6: everybody else, TikTok does that. That is that is the
Speaker 6: nature of social media. The question here is could they
Speaker 6: do it on behest of their government? And the answer
Speaker 6: is yes. We kind of know the answer because the
Speaker 6: TikTok available in China is very different than the TikTok
Speaker 6: av the United States. The Chinese government actually has restrictions
Speaker 6: on the amount of this kind of manipulation TikTok and
Speaker 6: do on its own citizens, but in the US it's
Speaker 6: a free for all. TikTok and behave just like Facebook,
Speaker 6: Twitter and everybody else.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's that's a really really right there. Is it
Speaker 1: much of a difference from.
Speaker 6: You know, I don't know, because it's not much experimentation.
Speaker 6: I believe it is. I believe there are rules on
Speaker 6: on the kind of contact content TikTok and show Chinese
Speaker 6: users they have on engagements, so they don't want people
Speaker 6: addicted to it, you know, But that's not just TikTok,
Speaker 6: that's all social media. But of course it's in China,
Speaker 6: so you've got you know, the Western social media doesn't penetrate.
Speaker 1: But Bruce, and you're talking about usually young users. Correct,
Speaker 1: TikTok's used younger than.
Speaker 6: Other Seventy percent of young Americans use TikTok. It's a
Speaker 6: crazy number.
Speaker 1: That's that's insane. So what about misinformation pushing out generated
Speaker 1: misinformation that the Chinese government wants they use to create
Speaker 1: some kind of chaos over here and division.
Speaker 6: They surely can. They probably better off using Facebook like
Speaker 6: everybody else does. I mean, that's what that's what Russia does.
Speaker 6: That's what so so likely they'll use Facebook because I
Speaker 6: think you know, more older people are on Facebook. But
Speaker 6: sure they can use TikTok, and are they just like
Speaker 6: everybody else. So again, there's no difference here, this information
Speaker 6: on Twitter, this invation on Facebook, on TikTok. The question
Speaker 6: which things interesting is is there a difference? You know,
Speaker 6: when you hear also banned TikTok, we talk about that
Speaker 6: because that's kind of a nutty ideas on its face,
Speaker 6: they're saying there's a qualitative difference between TikTok and Facebook.
Speaker 6: I'm not convinced there is. Well, there's a difference a
Speaker 6: degree probably, but not a difference in kind.
Speaker 5: But our Facebook, Instagram, the other major social media companies
Speaker 5: are they American based companies.
Speaker 3: Yes, So the big difference is the Chinese.
Speaker 5: Government is TikTok, it's our spying is good, they're spying
Speaker 5: no good.
Speaker 6: Well, but the question is how much spying can the
Speaker 6: Chinese government do using the American companies?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 6: They can't, Right, they can't get the same amount of
Speaker 6: bold data because they don't have that direct government line.
Speaker 6: But you know, we know they try to hack into
Speaker 6: these companies all the time. Google has been fending off
Speaker 6: China for like a couple of decades now, usually going
Speaker 6: after the Gmail accounts of Taiwanese dissidents, so you know,
Speaker 6: are they in We don't know.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you about this because I've read
Speaker 1: that the algorithm is different for TikTok, that the algorithm
Speaker 1: there is about minutes and hours of time spent, whereas
Speaker 1: the others we're talking about are about clicks and engagement.
Speaker 1: Is that a nuance that makes a difference?
Speaker 6: It probably does, you know. So all of these Western
Speaker 6: social media sites, and we'll add TikTok in the United States, right,
Speaker 6: they make their money showing you ass So their goal
Speaker 6: is to keep you on their platform as long as possible,
Speaker 6: which tends to mean extreme content, things that pissue off,
Speaker 6: things that are outrageous, and you know, cute puppy videos, right,
Speaker 6: So all of those things are shown on all these
Speaker 6: platforms to keep you engaged. Now, it's interesting the difference.
Speaker 6: Apple's the one company whose business model doesn't rely on
Speaker 6: spying you.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 6: Apple makes money selling you over price electrocs. So Apple
Speaker 6: systems tend not to have that addictive quality because the
Speaker 6: company doesn't need addiction to make money. Wow, there's other
Speaker 6: companies do.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 6: The more you use Google, the more money they make.
Speaker 6: The more you use Facebook, and the more money they
Speaker 6: make as opposed to Apple, which is singularly different.
Speaker 5: So given all this, what as a security tech guru,
Speaker 5: what are you called upon most to do?
Speaker 3: What do you do for these companies?
Speaker 5: And my second part of that question is what can
Speaker 5: what can the consumer? What can I do while I'm
Speaker 5: on my social media to push back at this?
Speaker 3: If anything?
Speaker 6: Are you gonna hate that answer? Uh?
Speaker 3: I mean, what can the consumer?
Speaker 5: What can I do while I'm on my social media
Speaker 5: to push back at this?
Speaker 6: If anything, you're gonna hate that answer? Uh? I mean
Speaker 6: a lot of what I do is security consulting, you know,
Speaker 6: how to networks safe? The answer your question when you asked, like,
Speaker 6: as a generic user, what can I do? And the
Speaker 6: answer is almost nothing, right, because your data is not
Speaker 6: in your hands. Think about what your data is. Your
Speaker 6: emails on Gmail, your photos are on No No, No,
Speaker 6: some photo site. Your documents are in the clouds somewhere else.
Speaker 6: You know, your calendar is here. Your data is no
Speaker 6: longer under your control now, So all these security measures,
Speaker 6: you've got to trust the companies. And that's a terrible
Speaker 6: story because the companies are like pretty untrustworthy. But at
Speaker 6: this point, the advice I can give you is very
Speaker 6: much around the edges, because your data is elsewhere controlled
Speaker 6: by other companies with their rules. And you call up, oh,
Speaker 6: I don't know, you know, facky and say, you know,
Speaker 6: I want to know what security measures my photographs are
Speaker 6: being protected by and they say, no, we won't tell you.
Speaker 6: Your choice is to trust them are not. So what
Speaker 6: can you do? Don't have a cell phone, don't have
Speaker 6: an email address, don't have a credit card, like, and
Speaker 6: that's kind of stupid advice for the first quarter twenty percent.
Speaker 5: So I can't let me ask you this. Can I
Speaker 5: Can I game my feed? Can I refuse to click
Speaker 5: on stuff that.
Speaker 3: I know they want me to click on?
Speaker 5: Can I can I not be sucked in by the
Speaker 5: enticements and thereby change what they send me?
Speaker 6: I mean you can, like, if you stop clicking on
Speaker 6: those cute puppy photos, they're going to stop sending you
Speaker 6: cute bubby photos. But honestly, they're cute bubby photos. They
Speaker 6: are hard not to click on.
Speaker 5: But I'm thinking more about I'm thinking more about political
Speaker 5: stories or cultural stories where you know it's being fed
Speaker 5: to me because they think they understand my bias.
Speaker 3: And you know, maybe so.
Speaker 6: One of the things I teach this in a policy
Speaker 6: school here at Harvard, and I had students last week
Speaker 6: download their Facebook and Google data. Both of those companies
Speaker 6: allow you to download their data about you. Do it.
Speaker 6: It's actually interesting what they have on you, how they've
Speaker 6: categorized you, what they've gotten right with they've gotten wrong. Now,
Speaker 6: in the United States you don't have any ability to
Speaker 6: correct that. In Europe you have some ability to have
Speaker 6: them delete your data and correct your data. Not in
Speaker 6: the US you have no recourse.
Speaker 1: I downloaded on I see egregious things said, There's no
Speaker 1: way to correct, no way to contact them.
Speaker 6: Says you see posts on Facebook you wrote but never sent.
Speaker 1: Can you well hold on hold on a second posted post.
Speaker 6: Yes, if you wrote something and said, you know, I
Speaker 6: don't want to send that, delete it. They've got a copy.
Speaker 1: We need to do. You got to testify in front
Speaker 1: of Congress again. Damn it.
Speaker 6: I you know you can see it yourself. It's it's
Speaker 6: I get it. It's there. They have an idea of
Speaker 6: where you live and where you work based on sort
Speaker 6: of where you are during the day and night, and
Speaker 6: of course you all have one. They know who you
Speaker 6: sleep with, like are you are you able to?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 5: Is that something you can explain, like in a few
Speaker 5: sentences about how somebody goes to download their data that way?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 6: You know what I tell them students is go do
Speaker 6: it because it's not that hard. I mean, type into Google,
Speaker 6: download your Facebook data, gives you instructions.
Speaker 1: It's not you know what's so funny if you got
Speaker 1: me the next question was going to ask, it would
Speaker 1: be that how do you down? How do you download?
Speaker 5: Because I'm now seriously, I'm I I signed up for Facebook.
Speaker 3: I have never used it.
Speaker 5: So I always tell anybody if you saw something of
Speaker 5: me on Facebook, it ain't.
Speaker 6: But knows you have Facebook collect data about you even
Speaker 6: if you're not on Facebook.
Speaker 3: Well, then may I just say them?
Speaker 1: So when you testified in front of Congress, were you
Speaker 1: completely frustrated when when you finished by the questions they asked, So, I'll.
Speaker 6: Give you a secret unless your high profile like a Zickberg.
Speaker 6: I mean the test of the congressional hearings you watch
Speaker 6: on television, most of the members aren't there. They're staffers there.
Speaker 6: Wait that.
Speaker 1: I knew that, But that's this is a good thing.
Speaker 6: The staffers are who you want to talk. They're the
Speaker 6: ones who know stuff and get stuff done. You know,
Speaker 6: I tend to know. I'm speaking to the staffers. So yeah,
Speaker 6: the members will ask questions. There'll be questions, the staffers
Speaker 6: wrote often they want to hear the answers. I'm good
Speaker 6: at giving answers and non techi terms, so I'm likable.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: I'll give them homework. They laugh.
Speaker 3: But I want to hang myself since we started this whole.
Speaker 6: Yea, but let's talk about answers. Let's talk about the
Speaker 6: notion of of what we might meet and say to
Speaker 6: ban Facebook.
Speaker 5: Right, I mean I was going to ask you, how
Speaker 5: would you change the laws here?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Okay, So there are several ways to do this. So
Speaker 6: the first one is you could ban the app stores
Speaker 6: from selling the app I would make from making the
Speaker 6: app available, So the Apple and Google app stores app
Speaker 6: is no longer available. This is like vaguely effective. It
Speaker 6: won't affect the seventy percent of young people have already
Speaker 6: installed the app. It's on their phone. Anybody who jail
Speaker 6: breaks their Apple phone or uses an alternate app store
Speaker 6: for Google, will they all download it? So you can
Speaker 6: still do it. Presumably the kids will exchange tricks on
Speaker 6: how to do this. It'll be vaguely effective. It doesn't
Speaker 6: affect the website at all. You can always go to
Speaker 6: TikTok through the website. So not a great idea. Let's
Speaker 6: do another one. Congress can ban US companies from doing
Speaker 6: business with Byte dance by dance to the company that
Speaker 6: would and this is what Donald Trump tried in twenty
Speaker 6: twenty and the courts courts blocked it. All right, So
Speaker 6: what this does is it keeps TikTok from being on
Speaker 6: American infrastructure. It would have some effect. It would definitely
Speaker 6: cut into TikTok's business. US advertisers couldn't pay money, but
Speaker 6: adds on TikTok if it's actually subsidied that Chinese wouldn't
Speaker 6: make that much of a difference. Maybe a little slower
Speaker 6: to load because the servers will be in Europe or
Speaker 6: in Canada instead of in the United States. Okay, so
Speaker 6: that's two. The third thing they can do is actually
Speaker 6: try to ban the companies from being on the internet
Speaker 6: the United States. And this would be incredibly difficult. This
Speaker 6: is building a censorship regime like China. We do not
Speaker 6: have the ability to enact that sort of ban, So
Speaker 6: our options tend to be further back in the financial realm,
Speaker 6: either prohibiting the app stores from having it, phivting US
Speaker 6: companies from doing business with byte Dance. I'm not gonvin
Speaker 6: still be that effective. And they're a big deal. I
Speaker 6: mean there really are. You know, we do that for
Speaker 6: things that are actually freaking dangerous.
Speaker 1: So they can't prove, they can't prove unequivocally what's going on, So, Bingo,
Speaker 1: are youre likely you're.
Speaker 6: Being spied on by the Chinese?
Speaker 5: I mean, duh, if we had a functional Congress and
Speaker 5: that they were savvy enough in this area, is there
Speaker 5: any kind of laws that we could create that would
Speaker 5: diminish the ability of these companies to legally do what
Speaker 5: they're doing?
Speaker 6: And yes, I mean right now, surveillance as a business
Speaker 6: model is legal without any regulation. You know, Google can
Speaker 6: sell what kind of you like to whoever wants to
Speaker 6: buy it. So yes, and Europe past some of these laws.
Speaker 6: The US doesn't. So when I think of the problem
Speaker 6: and the solution, I go back up right. I want
Speaker 6: serious data privacy laws that protect us from all the companies,
Speaker 6: not just TikTok, but the rest of them as well. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you know, a good regulation that protects us from all
Speaker 6: the companies, protects us from the Chinese. Now i'd like
Speaker 6: to be able to say that. Look, you know, surveillance
Speaker 6: as a business model is now a national security concern.
Speaker 1: So they're collecting all this information on us. And these
Speaker 1: companies want to grow and grow and grow. Where are
Speaker 1: they going to go next for revenue model? Since they
Speaker 1: have access? Is there something that's coming that we're not
Speaker 1: prepared for that you see from the cyber area that
Speaker 1: we haven't even dealt with yet.
Speaker 6: So they've already telegraphed, they've already said pretty much all
Speaker 6: of them that their future is AI, that AI being
Speaker 6: able to analyze better and manipulate better. Now, I don't
Speaker 6: know how much of this is real, how much of
Speaker 6: this is a red herring, but that is what they
Speaker 6: are saying. And they're looking at the same things you are,
Speaker 6: right like, we're saturated. What do we do? They see
Speaker 6: AI as a way to loose their.
Speaker 1: Revenue revenue screen because that's what it's about. Well, thanks,
Speaker 1: it's been a pleasure having you on. I now have
Speaker 1: and I'm going to go hang myself.
Speaker 6: I like this optimistic podcast.
Speaker 1: This is great, but have you changed your baid? Do
Speaker 1: you feel pretty good every day? Do you get up
Speaker 1: and go to Harvard whistling fixing on the way to
Speaker 1: class or do you have.
Speaker 6: Honestly, you have to I mean yes, I mean this
Speaker 6: is a lot of bad stuff in there, but you know,
Speaker 6: I tend to be longerm optimistic. This is not gonna
Speaker 6: be the thing that will, you know, destroy civilization. We've
Speaker 6: gone through a lot worse, and honestly, everybody makes their
Speaker 6: own decisions. I don't use Facebook, but I freaking play
Speaker 6: Pokemon Go.
Speaker 3: That's a space game, you know.
Speaker 6: So I'm not telling you to not to do these things.
Speaker 6: Don't think of that. We all make our own trade offs. Now,
Speaker 6: you want to watch the cute puppy videos, go to town.
Speaker 6: It makes you happy.
Speaker 1: You like the puppy thing, don't you You know, I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 6: I don't actually watch it's what's coming up. It's coming up.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't actually watch my own porn. I don't
Speaker 3: do it. I have puppy is playing with my IP.
Speaker 6: All right, this is this is the way to a sharing.
Speaker 1: You just made just uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: Finally, fantastic, I got.
Speaker 1: Well, you're thanks for coming on, man, I you amazing, amazed,
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for coming on. Appreciate it.
Speaker 5: See on the app. Okay, listen, if you had to
Speaker 5: do it, could you unplug from all of it?
Speaker 3: You couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: No, what would I do to talk to you all day?
Speaker 1: I want to see stuff that's interesting.
Speaker 3: Well, you couldn't talk to me. I'm like, I'm away myself.
Speaker 1: Well, what did we do is get this? We had it?
Speaker 1: But you can't. You can't opt out. You can't opt
Speaker 1: out there.
Speaker 5: Honestly, there are days where I wish every satellite would
Speaker 5: just explode so that we could go back a little.
Speaker 1: Bit to no communication systems.
Speaker 5: It wasn't that there were no communication systems. Things false.
Speaker 5: First of all, there was more privacy. Second of all,
Speaker 5: false falsehoods didn't propagate.
Speaker 1: By the way, there was no more prophecy. My grandman
Speaker 1: knew everything that's going on with everybody. I used to
Speaker 1: say to her, did you read Grandpa's diary? You look
Speaker 1: at you stuff? She said, Well, I'm going to go
Speaker 1: to bed every night with a stranger. She said, you listen,
Speaker 1: you follow me up and followed you over. I want
Speaker 1: to know exactly what, David.
Speaker 3: What do you got David.
Speaker 1: Oh Man.
Speaker 3: What don't I have?
Speaker 1: Right, what don't you have?
Speaker 6: Let's see?
Speaker 7: Can I add to the pessimism or I don't know.
Speaker 3: We've had enough of that. TikTok.
Speaker 1: Have you got you guys views TikTok.
Speaker 3: I do not.
Speaker 1: I work on TikTok A lot. Go ahead.
Speaker 3: You know what tworking is. So that is something.
Speaker 1: Well, condescen means talking down to you.
Speaker 7: Let me give you a little view of some of
Speaker 7: the things that you're missing.
Speaker 1: Okay, so here we go, leave you on things we
Speaker 1: are missing. Yeah.
Speaker 7: So the number one video of all time on TikTok
Speaker 7: has two point one billion views. It's from a guy
Speaker 7: named Zach King, and it's called Zach King's Magic Bride.
Speaker 7: I can't believe you haven't seen this. He appears. He's
Speaker 7: like on a suburban street and sort of a Harry
Speaker 7: Potter get up and he's like literally flying.
Speaker 3: I've seen him.
Speaker 5: I've seen it. And it's a mirror and he shows
Speaker 5: you the mirror and the thing.
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, yes, so that that seat you watch it.
Speaker 3: I don't watch it on TikTok. I didn't watch it
Speaker 3: on TikTok. Oh it came to me instead. Oh, Instagram. Well,
Speaker 3: there you go. You're luckily.
Speaker 7: Luckily for you, the Instagram has completely ripped off the
Speaker 7: TikTok look at you.
Speaker 1: Another one.
Speaker 3: This one's actually a sort of sweet.
Speaker 8: It's from a woman named Naya Dolly uh, and it's.
Speaker 3: Called Nya Dolly's Beauty Tutorial. Look in this one.
Speaker 7: But she's a very dark skinned African American woman doing
Speaker 7: her makeup, and she's very sweet, and it just sort
Speaker 7: of shows you, you know, a little bit like it's
Speaker 7: not all the typical, you know, stuff that you actually
Speaker 7: would assume was was our TikTok.
Speaker 1: So that was nice.
Speaker 7: Some of the other things that I looked at that
Speaker 7: are nonsense. The world's largest elephant toothpaste experiment, So that
Speaker 7: one has two hundred and sixty six million, because I
Speaker 7: have no idea what that's about. Another one, this is
Speaker 7: the number two video on the on the app.
Speaker 8: It's Welcome to the Sister's Christmas Party by James Charles
Speaker 8: that has one point seven billion views. And this one,
Speaker 8: and I know you're gonna download the app because it's
Speaker 8: so exciting.
Speaker 3: It's called Bella Porches m to the b.
Speaker 7: Uh Huh, which has seven hundred and thirty one million views, so.
Speaker 3: And you have no idea what happens on the m
Speaker 3: to the bit. No, I couldn't be bothered, You couldn't.
Speaker 3: I thought.
Speaker 5: The one that would have gone through the roof is
Speaker 5: the the iguana who's having the acid trip?
Speaker 3: Well, whose floor is that? Not my floor, not my
Speaker 3: flaw and not my problem. Remember that one? That that thing,
Speaker 3: Oh that was one of the funny.
Speaker 1: You know what, this is scaring me more than the
Speaker 1: security brief. How about that? You don't know that we
Speaker 1: spend time looking at this stuff that the iguana iguana, Well.
Speaker 3: It's not talking one. It's a it's an animated one.
Speaker 1: Animated one.
Speaker 5: Apparently the story behind it was a guy dropped acid
Speaker 5: and they put him in a closet and recorded him
Speaker 5: and then they animated this lizard whatever. But that that
Speaker 5: moves society forward.
Speaker 1: That kind of Yes, it makes us better, yes, better people,
Speaker 1: and it also gets a Chinese to go. I don't
Speaker 1: know what.
Speaker 3: I don't know what.
Speaker 1: I don't know what we do. You know what, we
Speaker 1: put up a lot of stuff that con That's what
Speaker 1: I was with their head.
Speaker 5: We game it with that, and I only watched certain
Speaker 5: kinds of things. Can I yes, right, cougar. Yeah, what's
Speaker 5: that cougar?
Speaker 1: Ham around with these all day long?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Yes, wow, give me another?
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, all right, all right, hold on second.
Speaker 3: Do something with a train and hold on dancing. No.
Speaker 1: I was going to go right to Madonna Each, and
Speaker 1: I got to give me a minute, right, but Madonna
Speaker 1: Each the world's largest wawfut, we're going lee there. We
Speaker 1: only got it, Thank you very much, Davin. I feel
Speaker 1: like we haven't moved the ball at all. The question
Speaker 1: was TikTok safe or not? Well?
Speaker 3: The question was is China profiting?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: Are they spying?
Speaker 1: Yes? Are we yes?
Speaker 3: Is everybody spying?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: Have we been compromised?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: Are we in trouble?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: Is anyone going to help us?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 5: You are our future people who.
Speaker 3: Have not resited.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's another episode if really no really comes to
Speaker 2: a close. I know you're wondering how many global users
Speaker 2: do the top ranked social media sites actually have that
Speaker 2: answer in a moment, But first let's thank our guest,
Speaker 2: Bruce Schneier.
Speaker 3: You can follow Bruce.
Speaker 2: On x where he is at Schneier. On Facebook, he
Speaker 2: is Bruce Schneier and he has a blog at Schneier
Speaker 2: dot com. Find all pertinent links in our show notes,
Speaker 2: our little show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and
Speaker 2: threads at really No Really podcast And of course you
Speaker 2: can share your thoughts and feedback with us online at
Speaker 2: reallynoreally dot com. If you have a really some amazing
Speaker 2: factor story that boggles your mind, share it with us
Speaker 2: and if we use it, we will send you a
Speaker 2: little gift. Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the thought
Speaker 2: that counts. Check out our full episodes on YouTube, hit
Speaker 2: that subscribe button and take that bell so you're updated
Speaker 2: when we release new videos and episodes, which we do
Speaker 2: each Tuesday. So listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3: Now, what are the.
Speaker 2: Top social media apps and how many users do they have?
Speaker 3: Well lower down the list or some you may recognize.
Speaker 2: Threads has one hundred million users, Cora has three hundred million,
Speaker 2: LinkedIn has four hundred and twenty four million users. X
Speaker 2: formerly Twitter, ranks in at number thirteen with five hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty million users, and the top ten ranked from
Speaker 2: number ten to number one. Sinoweibo five hundred and ninety
Speaker 2: nine million, Kui Show six hundred and seventy three million,
Speaker 2: Snapchat seven hundred and fifty MILS, Telegram eight hundred mil,
Speaker 2: Little Old TikTok at one point two to two billion users,
Speaker 2: we Chat one point three to two billion, Instagram two
Speaker 2: point oh four billion users, YouTube coming in at two
Speaker 2: point four to nine billion. What's App is number two
Speaker 2: with two point seven eight billion and blowing them away
Speaker 2: at number one is you guessed it? Facebook with three
Speaker 2: point oh five billion users per month worldwide and maybe
Speaker 2: two hundred of them follow me. No, really, million, It
Speaker 2: really is the production of iHeartRadio and Blase Entertainment