Speaker 1: House Republicans have kicked off their investigations. The House Oversight
Speaker 1: Committee brought Twitter employees before them, like James Baker and
Speaker 1: nul Wroth, to grill them on Twitter's collusion with the
Speaker 1: FBI to censor the media, to censor Americans. We all
Speaker 1: know and remember what they did with the Hunter Bided
Speaker 1: laptop story and what they did to the New York
Speaker 1: Posts government ever contact you or anyone at Twitter to
Speaker 1: censor or moderate certain tweets? Yes or no. We received
Speaker 1: legal demands to remove content from the platform from the
Speaker 1: US government and governments all around the walking of these
Speaker 1: people for weeks and months, years prior to this League game.
Speaker 1: They have specifically told you in October that the potentially
Speaker 1: involving Hunter Biden's laptop legately and literally prophesized what happened,
Speaker 1: and you contacted them, Sir, I did not, did Mr Roth?
Speaker 1: Do you personally think that you have a political bias?
Speaker 1: And did you have on when you worked in Twitter,
Speaker 1: a personal political bias? No, sir, as you didn't. You know.
Speaker 1: That's that's remarkable because it's pretty much you did have
Speaker 1: strong biases compared when you compared, ironically using Twitter people
Speaker 1: that worked in the Trump White House to Nazis, they
Speaker 1: were good folks that you simply disagreed with politically and
Speaker 1: art representative republic, and you compare them to the most
Speaker 1: evil people on the planet there murdered sixty million people,
Speaker 1: or at least we're responsible for those deaths. Do you
Speaker 1: think that was a little bit hyperbolic. We'll talk to
Speaker 1: Kara Frederick, the director of the Tech Policy Center at
Speaker 1: the Heritage Foundation, about all of it. What do you
Speaker 1: need to know about what happened in that hearing, what
Speaker 1: does it mean, and what does it mean moving forward.
Speaker 1: We'll also get her take on TikTok about how China
Speaker 1: uses the social media app to spy on you and
Speaker 1: brainwash your kids. What do you need to know about that?
Speaker 1: How worried should you be? All that? And more on
Speaker 1: the Truth with Lisa Booth Kara Frederick's My guests, stay tuned. So, Karen,
Speaker 1: Republicans kicked off their oversight hearings looking at the collusion
Speaker 1: between the FBI and Twitter as well. You know, what
Speaker 1: did you make of these hearings? Obviously we wouldn't know
Speaker 1: about any of this if Elon Musk kind of released
Speaker 1: the Twitter files, But you know, what are your takeaways
Speaker 1: from all of it? Yeah, I thought it was pretty unsatisfying,
Speaker 1: to be honest. Um, I left with a lot more
Speaker 1: questions than answers. Um, you know that you'll wroth of Gota,
Speaker 1: James Baker. These guys are all coach, They're good at
Speaker 1: what they do. Um. The other Twitter employee was she
Speaker 1: was a little more fast and loose, especially when it
Speaker 1: came to the First Amendment and free speech. But but
Speaker 1: the other guys had it pretty buttoned down. So I
Speaker 1: was pretty unsatisfied with what came out of it. However,
Speaker 1: you know, given what Elon Musk has basically revealed, and
Speaker 1: we saw like little shreds and data points of what
Speaker 1: we believed to be happening. We wrote about this at
Speaker 1: the Heritage Foundation back in February two. But when Elon
Speaker 1: Musk actually had those Twitter files released through the spade
Speaker 1: of independent journalists, UM, we were able to see and
Speaker 1: you know, in stark reality like what was actually going on.
Speaker 1: So we knew before from the Intercept reporting that there
Speaker 1: had been meetings with the FBI and Big Tech ahead
Speaker 1: of We knew that Zuckerberg, remember when he admitted on
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan that the FBI warned a Facebook of a
Speaker 1: propaganda dump that might look akin to Russian hacking prior
Speaker 1: to their decision to suppress the laptop story. But then
Speaker 1: when Ellen came out with it, it was like okay, bam,
Speaker 1: like it is absolutely indisputaful. So I thought that was
Speaker 1: a great service, But in my mind, I'm kind of
Speaker 1: wondered why, wondering why the rest of um, you know,
Speaker 1: the main cream media and um, the rest of America
Speaker 1: isn't as exercised about this collusion now that we have
Speaker 1: verifiable proof that this was happening, that you know, they
Speaker 1: they effectively the FBI ran an influence campaign against you
Speaker 1: o roth um Uh former Twitter executive by bringing him
Speaker 1: out to Aspen, having an entire exercise focused on Hunter
Speaker 1: Biden specifically and what potential laptop league and documently could
Speaker 1: look like, um if it was part of you know,
Speaker 1: foreign influence campaign. So you know, the FBI is kind
Speaker 1: of doing at this point what they're accusing other other countries,
Speaker 1: but militians intent of doing. And in my mind, Americans
Speaker 1: should be really really ticked off. And I hope the
Speaker 1: Oversight Committee keeps going after these people. I hope that
Speaker 1: the FEC opens their investing, reopens their investigation because the
Speaker 1: Twitter executives at that point had said that Twitter, the
Speaker 1: Twitter was not working with the Biden campaign. Again, these
Speaker 1: Twitter files were real that that was not true. So
Speaker 1: I'm I'm hoping to get consequences out of this and
Speaker 1: not just sort of a theatrical here. And we we
Speaker 1: need to to actually have legislation, um be the result
Speaker 1: of these hearings. And I think some you know, there's
Speaker 1: draft legislation underway. I think those should go to a vote,
Speaker 1: and and I think this collusion should end. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: hear you and that. I mean, look, I was getting
Speaker 1: frustrated to just because they weren't being honest. I mean,
Speaker 1: we know that the FBI had these weekly meetings with
Speaker 1: Twitter officials like you'll Roth. They're warning them about this
Speaker 1: hack and leak operation, you know, heading into all of this,
Speaker 1: heading into this stopping of this New York Post article.
Speaker 1: And also we know that the FBI sent you'll Roth
Speaker 1: documents the night before they stopped the New York Post
Speaker 1: from sharing this article. And I think what concerns me
Speaker 1: the most is obviously, if we lose the First Amendment,
Speaker 1: we cease to be a free country. We ceased to
Speaker 1: be a republic exactly. And you know, everybody used to
Speaker 1: sort of say, oh, the First Amendment only applies to
Speaker 1: government actors, when we as conservatives would be like, hey,
Speaker 1: these private companies are are actually you know, restricting our
Speaker 1: free speech. But we have a culture of free speech
Speaker 1: of course, so that matters too. But then secondly, this
Speaker 1: is the smoking gun when it comes to government actors
Speaker 1: restricting our free speech, and those are um, at least
Speaker 1: in my estimation. I'm not a lawyer, but that's a
Speaker 1: pretty clear by elation of the First Amendment. And this
Speaker 1: is another thing that I think people don't now they're
Speaker 1: starting to understand about tech companies, But we used to
Speaker 1: I I used to work at Facebook, and we would
Speaker 1: call ourselves, um, those the people that are building an
Speaker 1: airplane in midflight. So these guys are sort of making
Speaker 1: it up as they go. They've proven that over the
Speaker 1: past few years. But now we see that their ideological
Speaker 1: actors sort of retrofitting explanations for enacting their political proclivities,
Speaker 1: and they make that decision, they find a justification later,
Speaker 1: like they did with the you know, the hacked materials,
Speaker 1: which turn out not to be true, and then they
Speaker 1: actually admitted that's not true. Then the election happens and
Speaker 1: they get the result that they supposed they want, and
Speaker 1: now it's maya copa, maya coppa. We shouldn't have done that,
Speaker 1: but it's too little, too late, and this happens time
Speaker 1: and time and time again. You mentioned working for Facebook.
Speaker 1: It what's really concerning, it's just how much influenced all
Speaker 1: of these tech companies have and me, if you look
Speaker 1: collectively at Google twy or Facebook, etcetera, they control so
Speaker 1: much almost you know, most of the information that we
Speaker 1: see or that we read, you know, talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about that, oh exactly. And you know, it's not
Speaker 1: just sort of the content that they're censoring under the
Speaker 1: term content moderation, which really amounts to censorship, like you said,
Speaker 1: it's the information flow, it's access to information. And that's
Speaker 1: particularly troubling. And we as conservatives harp on this vignette
Speaker 1: over and over again because I think it's important, and
Speaker 1: that vignette is the Parlor one. So when Amazon or
Speaker 1: excuse me, when um, Apple and Google decided to purge
Speaker 1: uh Parlor, which at that time was at the top
Speaker 1: of the Apple's app store from their their apps from
Speaker 1: their stores. It was like, okay, well maybe you can
Speaker 1: get it on you know, the desktop. You can still
Speaker 1: look at Parlor. It was still sort of alive but
Speaker 1: on life support. But then when Amazon Web Services decided
Speaker 1: to restrict or not just restrict, but take away cloud
Speaker 1: hosting services from Parlor, it was dead in the water.
Speaker 1: It didn't exist anymore. So it's not just at you know,
Speaker 1: the top layer, that the digital platform layer, but it's
Speaker 1: that these mid tiers of what we call the digital
Speaker 1: stack that actually prevents access to consumers to information. You
Speaker 1: could not get Parlor at that point at all in
Speaker 1: any form, in any digital form. So you know, this
Speaker 1: goes further and further down to things like internet service providers,
Speaker 1: more foundational layers of that stack. So Americans don't just
Speaker 1: have to be concerned about how their content is manipulated
Speaker 1: and restricted and sort of the the influence in the
Speaker 1: propaganda that you were thinking of, um, that's both cut
Speaker 1: off and and pushed them by specific companies. Um. But
Speaker 1: they do have to be concerned about their access to information,
Speaker 1: which I think is that is the seat change, that
Speaker 1: is the crossing of the rubicon in my mind, when
Speaker 1: you start to get down into those foundation or foundational
Speaker 1: layers of that digital stack which prevents Americans from actually
Speaker 1: seeing this information. So it's not just breaking the links
Speaker 1: in direct message, does it Twitter? It's actually lights out
Speaker 1: for these entire companies if they displease a specific big
Speaker 1: tech platforms that frankly have an ideological event. And one
Speaker 1: of the big problems is that so many of these
Speaker 1: American companies are being led by people who do not
Speaker 1: believe in freedom. They don't believe in free speech. I mean,
Speaker 1: you'll roth sit there during the hearing talking about how
Speaker 1: somehow you know censorship preserve speech. I mean, how does
Speaker 1: that even make sense? Or you look at Apple, Apple
Speaker 1: change the air drop feature in China so protesters couldn't
Speaker 1: circumvent the government. So even if you make changes in Congress,
Speaker 1: even if you change policy in Congress, we still have
Speaker 1: people leading these companies who do not believe in free speech.
Speaker 1: So where do you go from there? No, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: And that's when I when I first came from California
Speaker 1: to the Hill, I basically would walk around, you know,
Speaker 1: briefing members and say, hey, you guys have to look
Speaker 1: at these companies differently because they don't see themselves as
Speaker 1: American companies. They see themselves as global companies responsible to
Speaker 1: a global constituency. And you look at a company like
Speaker 1: Facebook or now Meta, which has their user base outside
Speaker 1: of the U. S. And Canada. So they will, you know,
Speaker 1: if they're hauled in front of Congress, they'll pretend that
Speaker 1: they bleed red, white and blue, or incorporated in Delaware.
Speaker 1: You know, we're American companies, but they really think differently
Speaker 1: because they do. They're they're concerned about growth, their bottom
Speaker 1: lines first and foremost, and they want to make sure
Speaker 1: that when they're making decisions that it could apply to
Speaker 1: the countries within which they're operating, and that's not just America.
Speaker 1: And I think that the biggest manifestation of this was
Speaker 1: when the former CEO of Twitter, Parague eper Wall, when
Speaker 1: he specifically talked and tweeted about you know, the First
Speaker 1: Amendment and free speech right, they're more concerned with safety
Speaker 1: and harm. He's basically said that free speech is not
Speaker 1: you know, it's not absolute, it's not something that um
Speaker 1: we care about first and foremost. It's you know, preventing
Speaker 1: harm and and that you know, harm as is as
Speaker 1: you know, a catch off for all kinds of things,
Speaker 1: especially on the left, that that we necessarily wouldn't agree with. So, um,
Speaker 1: where do you go from there? That's a good question,
Speaker 1: I think generally, Um, and you'll see this in the
Speaker 1: China question that you raised. We we need to recover
Speaker 1: a sense of you know, American self interest, frankly, because
Speaker 1: with with China it's the whole. Now there's a big
Speaker 1: movement to onshore a lot of our capabilities, whether it
Speaker 1: be ppe for you know, the next pandemic um or
Speaker 1: the ability to to make a semiconductor chips that power
Speaker 1: pretty much everything that that we're going to use, from cars, computers,
Speaker 1: to watches, etcetera. So I think that we need to
Speaker 1: sort of press into that momentum m you know, bring
Speaker 1: things back to America and recover our sense of of
Speaker 1: what it means to be American innovators who care about America.
Speaker 1: And you know then that has naturally resulted in being
Speaker 1: a force for good as the world. So we we
Speaker 1: need to get back to where we started from if
Speaker 1: we're going to frankly succeed going forward. I mean, it
Speaker 1: seems to be common sense that you want to be independent,
Speaker 1: that you want to bring manufacturing back home, that we
Speaker 1: want to be energy independent and we want to be
Speaker 1: less reliant upon our enemies. It seems like common sense,
Speaker 1: but Joe Biden doesn't get it. Democrats don't get it
Speaker 1: as well. But you know, I want to keep talking
Speaker 1: about China here. So there's obviously been this increased focus
Speaker 1: on TikTok after the Chinese aircraft was going around basically
Speaker 1: doing god knows what, taking pictures of our nuclear silos
Speaker 1: and air force bases and all of that. But do
Speaker 1: you think the concerns here over TikTok and China's influence
Speaker 1: over TikTok? Is that overblown? Pun intended or what's your takeaway? Oh?
Speaker 1: Not overblown at all. And and it's really funny that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, we're in in the position to say, is
Speaker 1: this overblown? Because when we were working on this prob
Speaker 1: ablem back in the Heritage Foundation was working on I
Speaker 1: was working on in a different passy center, Holly, Um,
Speaker 1: I felt like we were voices alone in the wilderness,
Speaker 1: and people were like, you're crazy, what are you talking about.
Speaker 1: This is a great cup above and the fact that
Speaker 1: we've gotten this far to to be able to expose
Speaker 1: this digital platform for what it is, I think is great,
Speaker 1: So I'll take that as a win, um, but not
Speaker 1: overblown at all. As you said, Beijing based parent company
Speaker 1: by Dance. That matters, and it matters because of a
Speaker 1: few reasons. And the first and most important one is
Speaker 1: China has a seventeen National Intelligence law that effectively requires
Speaker 1: every private company to provide access to the state. So
Speaker 1: every private entity is working in service of the Chinese
Speaker 1: Party state that the Chinese Communist Parties UCP UM. That is,
Speaker 1: so whenever they say, oh, you know we are we're
Speaker 1: totally separate. We store our data in the US and
Speaker 1: in Singapore, so nobody has to worry about our Chinese
Speaker 1: ties that were actively trying to downplay We know that
Speaker 1: given internal communications that were released and reported on that
Speaker 1: they actively try to downplay that tie. Um. That that
Speaker 1: matters because when Beijing comes knocking, Bye Dance via TikTok
Speaker 1: or Tiktokavians is not going to say no, they can't.
Speaker 1: And then we know that Byte Dance actively employees former
Speaker 1: CCP state media members. There's a report that had over
Speaker 1: three hundred UM profiles declared that they had been members
Speaker 1: of the Party state at some point UM, and then further,
Speaker 1: one of three by dance board seats held by a
Speaker 1: UM person with active CCP ties. So this is I mean,
Speaker 1: it's very very obvious. And that that alone is you know,
Speaker 1: those are facts, and then you look at what's happened
Speaker 1: since UM we can establish those facts for the American people,
Speaker 1: and we know that US user data has been accessed
Speaker 1: in China by Bye Dance engineers. So again they're saying, oh,
Speaker 1: there's a sundering between our Chinese operations and our US
Speaker 1: operation is not true because Chinese engineers in China have
Speaker 1: access to US user data. Further, a new revelation forbes
Speaker 1: UM basically UM released that TikTok planned to surveil the
Speaker 1: location of specific Americans journalists. So these are Byte Dance
Speaker 1: employees in China using TikTok to gather i P address
Speaker 1: location or attempting to gather i P address locational information
Speaker 1: for these specific journalists to find their sources. UM. So
Speaker 1: it is being used TikTok as a surveillance app that
Speaker 1: it is by by Dance employees in China. So anything
Speaker 1: that these companies are saying, and I'm gonna be watching
Speaker 1: with with bated breath the TikTok CEO when he goes
Speaker 1: in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on
Speaker 1: March twenty three, um to to hear what he has
Speaker 1: to say, because all of these equivocations UM frankly amount
Speaker 1: to falsehoods, and they know they're being deliberately misleading given
Speaker 1: what we know from recent reporting on accessing user data
Speaker 1: from China that that rift between the Chinese and American
Speaker 1: company does not exist like they say it does. But
Speaker 1: what's wild is Adam Schiff, who previously was the chairman
Speaker 1: of the House Intelligence Committee, is audit. I mean, he
Speaker 1: should know better. And then you have people like GERK Swollwell,
Speaker 1: who was also on the Intel Committee, who had a
Speaker 1: relationship with a Chinese spy. You have Senator Diane Feinstein
Speaker 1: who employed a Chinese spy for for twenty years. You've
Speaker 1: got the Biden family who have made money off of
Speaker 1: China as well. You've got all these American companies previously
Speaker 1: you know mentioned Apple, you know you got the NBA.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I guess, do do we have the
Speaker 1: will to to go after China, to hold China's feet
Speaker 1: to the fire since everyone is still beholding to them.
Speaker 1: I honestly believe that that is the biggest problem that
Speaker 1: we're facing and the biggest problem that the China Select
Speaker 1: Committee is going to face. Two. You know, we need
Speaker 1: to end China's land grabs in the American heartlands. We
Speaker 1: need to end p l A influence in U S universities.
Speaker 1: And when people are, you know, getting part of their
Speaker 1: paycheck from the CCP or Chinese related end z s,
Speaker 1: I think you know that they're they're compromised. UM, and
Speaker 1: a lot of especially the Democratic Party, as you mentioned
Speaker 1: swallow Well shift, even Biden. We know about his dealings
Speaker 1: from the Hunter Biden laptop relations UM and his son's
Speaker 1: dealings with CCP members, the CCP spy master in fact. UM.
Speaker 1: So so you're right, when they're in the pockets of Beijing,
Speaker 1: it's going to be harder and harder to UM figure
Speaker 1: out solutions. And I really believe it's incumbent upon especially
Speaker 1: the Republicans on the China Select Committee. I'm glad that
Speaker 1: there's bipartisan efforts UM. Some of the TikTok bills actually
Speaker 1: UM in the House are bipartisan led efforts of Christian Morthy,
Speaker 1: Democrat Representative is co sponsoring the Bill with Mike Gallagher UM,
Speaker 1: in addition to Mike Warner really sounding the alarm on
Speaker 1: TikTok um at Democrat from Virginia. So I think it's UM.
Speaker 1: It's very important for UM for people to obey the
Speaker 1: dictates of their consciences at this point because UM this
Speaker 1: whole you know, extracting wealth from America. My friend Page
Speaker 1: wildly talks about that. A lot of people sort of
Speaker 1: getting their's and you know, while the rot is UM
Speaker 1: is still pervasive, so that you know this, it carries
Speaker 1: on as it was without UM being you know, who
Speaker 1: we used to be as a country. I think I
Speaker 1: think people are just they're they're trying to get their's uh,
Speaker 1: and then they're trying to secure that for their posterity
Speaker 1: and their own children. Perfect example of of how that
Speaker 1: that looks in the real world. And Americans just have
Speaker 1: to say no UM. At the Heritage Foundation, you know,
Speaker 1: we've talked to a lot of people who are who
Speaker 1: are very interested in this question, people with UM who
Speaker 1: have made a lot of money, businessmen and one and
Speaker 1: they're like, I cannot allow this to go on. I
Speaker 1: I have UM for a sense of morality. And this
Speaker 1: is where you know, we're pulling out of China and
Speaker 1: being able to see that, especially when you're big tech
Speaker 1: companies like Apple, UM, who gets a lot of their
Speaker 1: revenue from China. That's a huge market for them. Uh
Speaker 1: and they can't see that. But the average you know,
Speaker 1: American business owner and not average, but you know, good
Speaker 1: solid American business owners can. I think we need more
Speaker 1: of those those men and women, UM and and frankly,
Speaker 1: it needs to be exposed. I don't think people know
Speaker 1: what you know about UM apples in China and partnering
Speaker 1: with the CCP, propaganda arm Um, Google attempting to make
Speaker 1: a search engine in China called Dragonfly for you, and UM.
Speaker 1: You know, we need to expose the fact that a
Speaker 1: lot of these big tech companies, these global is frankly
Speaker 1: UM are are in bed with the CCP because that's
Speaker 1: the world they think is successful. Those are all really
Speaker 1: great points. You look at TikTok, more than a hundred
Speaker 1: million American users. They spend an average of more than
Speaker 1: eighty minutes per day on the app. You've got roughly
Speaker 1: thirty six percent of Americans over the age of twelve
Speaker 1: now use TikTok, including sixty one of Americans ages twelve
Speaker 1: through thirty four, I mean massive influence. And I worry
Speaker 1: that beyond just the data privacy issues, I worry about
Speaker 1: the brainwashing aspect of this as well. Uh, there was
Speaker 1: this article I was reading and the Daily Mail is
Speaker 1: talking about concerns in the UK. They said something like
Speaker 1: the hashtag trance has been used almost twenty six billion
Speaker 1: times and you look at that, you look at things
Speaker 1: like puberty blockers leading to infertility at a time when
Speaker 1: we face declining birthrates. I mean, if you're China, would
Speaker 1: would you do anything differently? Absolutely not? And you know
Speaker 1: we know from this has been popularized. Now China is
Speaker 1: doing all of this all while insulating Chinese kids through
Speaker 1: the more wholesome and joy in at their Chinese version
Speaker 1: of TikTok um. And it's particularly concerning for the next
Speaker 1: generation of citizens. So TikTok is they're winning the battle
Speaker 1: for the next generation in America, frankly, and two thirds
Speaker 1: of American teams around TikTok We know that parents surveyed
Speaker 1: by Pew said that of their pre teens, these are
Speaker 1: nine to eleven year olds are on TikTok and it
Speaker 1: indoctrinates American youth through pushing harmful content like eating disorders,
Speaker 1: like suicide, content like verbal, verbal and physical ticks UM
Speaker 1: content with influencers that exhibit those UM particular symptoms. And
Speaker 1: there's one report from the Wall Street Journal UH last
Speaker 1: year that basically said, all of the young women who
Speaker 1: went to a Texas hospital who were exhibiting these verbal
Speaker 1: and physical ticks, all of a sudden, they traced all
Speaker 1: of their their UM, their habits back to looking at
Speaker 1: a particular TikTok influencer. So this is all happening all
Speaker 1: while China insulates their own children through the more wholesome
Speaker 1: app called in the Chinese version of TikTok UM. And
Speaker 1: we know that, you know, even adults are starting to
Speaker 1: get their news and a lot of their content here
Speaker 1: on TikTok. The number of American adults using TikTok for
Speaker 1: news has tripled in the past two years. So we're
Speaker 1: plugging ourselves into this application that's pumping UH these influence
Speaker 1: campaigns as propaganda. We know that pro CCP narratives are
Speaker 1: also pumped into UM TikTok algorithms and their feed So
Speaker 1: understanding what this is doing to the next generation, what
Speaker 1: what effect this could have on our citizens who are
Speaker 1: going to vote and who are charged with the future
Speaker 1: of our republic. We haven't even seen the impacts of
Speaker 1: that yet, so not just on mental health, but also
Speaker 1: on you know, how we how they successfully stored this
Speaker 1: nation going forward. And as you said, if I, you know,
Speaker 1: if I was trying to if I was a CCP,
Speaker 1: if I was chusing being, I would not do anything differently.
Speaker 1: Z turning out and droves for Democrats believing abortion, climate change,
Speaker 1: gun control, all these different things, you know, are are
Speaker 1: the biggest issues that you know, they're all going to
Speaker 1: lead to the demise of the country. But I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you, you know, if if if you could
Speaker 1: wave a magic wand what would you do about big tech?
Speaker 1: What what would you like to see get done in Congress? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: starting with TikTok, I think this is a no brainer.
Speaker 1: It's time to ban it outright from operating within the
Speaker 1: United States. It's both a CCP spy app and as
Speaker 1: you said, something that that really brainwashes our children and
Speaker 1: also puts them in the CCPs clutches for um, you know,
Speaker 1: when they're playing the long game, for for blackmail, for espionage,
Speaker 1: all kinds. They have patterns of life on our children
Speaker 1: now and we should not be tolerating that. So that
Speaker 1: would be great. Just absolutely, it has to happen at
Speaker 1: the federal level. States are moving out. It's great what
Speaker 1: they're doing when it comes to banning TikTok on government devices,
Speaker 1: but it's not enough. They can still access the data,
Speaker 1: especially if you connect to government WiFi, etcetera. So it's
Speaker 1: only a partial solution. Um. And then you know, I
Speaker 1: think there's a great suggestion by SCC Commissioner Brendan Carr
Speaker 1: who says, hey, remove TikTok from Google and Apple app stores.
Speaker 1: You did it to Parlor, so why can't you do
Speaker 1: to TikTok. We have a lot of evidence that and
Speaker 1: security justification that this is extremely harmful. Then second, the
Speaker 1: collusion between big tech and the government, that's something that
Speaker 1: we should impose costs on. So there should not be
Speaker 1: it should not be permitted to allow the federal government
Speaker 1: to use these tech companies and these executives as agents
Speaker 1: to chill the speech of Americans and polices speech of Americans.
Speaker 1: So that's huge too. And then third, I think you
Speaker 1: need to look at the way these companies do business
Speaker 1: like their ad tech models. Center. Ely has a great
Speaker 1: bill that I hope he introduces and Conress Congress reintroduces
Speaker 1: UM that takes a look at their at tech. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't have be UM on the buy side and
Speaker 1: the cell side and operating ad exchange. It helps these
Speaker 1: companies sort of accrew all of that power to themselves
Speaker 1: and then they can visit the censorship decisions that you
Speaker 1: know don't run down to the benefit of most American citizens,
Speaker 1: especially on the right UM. And it's it's that consolidation
Speaker 1: of power that is really UM preventing Americans from getting
Speaker 1: the access they need to specific service as well as
Speaker 1: UM giving them the potential to influence UM. You know
Speaker 1: what Americans see, especially before an election, as we know
Speaker 1: with Google and Gmail and their spam filters and how
Speaker 1: they inordinately filtered out into their spam conservative candidates, uh
Speaker 1: and not Democratic candidates. So there's a litany of things.
Speaker 1: I think those three things are are the top things
Speaker 1: that you do right now, and then you work on frankly,
Speaker 1: data privacy and children. I think that's the next frontier.
Speaker 1: That's something we really need to think hard about. Again,
Speaker 1: there's some really interesting bills percolating like the Kids Online
Speaker 1: Safety Act UM and I think Republicans need to lean
Speaker 1: into those UM and conservatives as well, and we could
Speaker 1: get some you know, bipartisan consensus along the way, because
Speaker 1: everybody sees what this is doing to our children and
Speaker 1: nobody's happy about it. And these tech companies they're they're
Speaker 1: doing it on purpose. They're deliberately designing these platforms to
Speaker 1: maximize engagement and even targeting these UM quote small but
Speaker 1: untapped audiences like pre teams. So this is something that
Speaker 1: should be nipped in the bud right away. America can
Speaker 1: do it. All of this goes in the direction of
Speaker 1: harming Republicans, as it always does. Kara Frederick, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for joining the show. Super insightful. I really appreciate
Speaker 1: your time. Thanks Lisa, so was Kara Frederick, director of
Speaker 1: the Tech Policy Center at the Heritage Foundation. Interesting conversation.
Speaker 1: Obviously knows a lot about the issue. I want to
Speaker 1: thank you guys at home for listening every Monday and Thursday,
Speaker 1: but you can listen throughout the week. I want to
Speaker 1: thank John Cassio, my producer, for putting the show together.
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