The Daily Signal - Rep. August Pfluger on What's Next for TikTok Bill

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

TikTok might soon be facing a choice: Divest from its Chinese Communist Party-controlled parent company, or cease to operate in the U.S.  “This is not about the content that is being posted on TikTok,” Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, says. “It's about the conduct of the company that controls TikTok, that makes the decisions, that has a narrative that is able to use Chinese Communist Party propaganda through the platform, if they so choose.”  ByteDance is TikTok’s parent company. It's headquartered in Beijing and subject to Chinese law that requires companies to make data available to the CCP.  The House is set to vote Wednesday on a bill designed to prevent foreign adversary-controlled applications from operating in the U.S. Some are referring to the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act at the “TikTok bill,” since it would prevent TikTok from operating in the U.S. if the company does not break from ByteDance.  The bill received bipartisan support in committee and is expected to pass the House.  Pfluger joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain why TikTok poses a national security threat to the U.S. and whether he thinks the bill will receive the same bipartisan support in the Senate.  Following the conversation with Pfluger, Jake Denton, research associate in the Tech Policy Center at The Heritage Foundation, joins the show to explain how the app would effectively be banned in the U.S. if the bill does pass and TikTok refuses to divest from its CCP-controlled parent company. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of Heritage.) Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, March 13th. I'm Virginia Allen. The future of TikTok is at stake in the United States this week. Congress is going to vote on a bill that will give TikTok a choice, a choice as to whether they divest from their parent company, bite dance that is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party or whether they will stop operating within the United States. The House of Representatives is expected to vote on that. bill today, Wednesday, and we are getting a full picture of what is writing on this bill today, both by talking with a lawmaker to get his take and Heritage Foundation policy expert, Jake Denton. But right now, it is my pleasure first to be joined by Congressman August Flugher of Texas. The Congressman serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee, as well as the Homeland Security Committee. Congressman Flueger, thank you so much for being on the show today? Well, first off, this is such an important topic. And, you know, I'm proud of the China Select Committee, which is a bipartisan committee led by Mike Gallagher and others that have looked at these

issues. The Homeland Security Committee, which I'm on, has looked at how we protect our country from the Chinese Communist Party and other nefarious actors. And as it relates to the Energy and Commerce Committee, now we have this bill, we've marked it up, and it really does lay out a choice. The platform should not be in jeopardy. This should be an easy choice for TikTok, which is a subsidiary of bite dance, which is closely linked and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. And you can see right there that the dangers that lay with a company that is beholden to a government that is demonstrating on a daily basis, their willingness to undermine American interest, both at home and abroad, not just with the data, not just with,

this particular platform, but in many different areas. So the choice is pretty clear for TikTok that they either divest from their parent company, Bite Dance, which is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, or they won't be allowed in the United States. And I hope, and there's a lot of people, I know that this is going to be maybe misunderstood or there's a lot of questions on this. This is not about the content that is being posted on TikTok. It's a much bigger picture than that. It's about the conduct of the company that controls TikTok. that makes the decisions that has a narrative that is able to use Chinese Communist Party propaganda through the platform if they so choose. And so what my hope is is that the users of TikTok will

push back and they will say, why don't you sell it to a good company in a friendly country? That is what this bill says, not just for TikTok, but for other entities that are related either to Russia, to China, to Iran, or obviously to China. This is a bill that's being closely watched by many of Americans. There's about over 100 million Americans that use TikTok on a pretty regular basis here in America. And the question, though, is what are the chief concerns related to security? Why is TikTok a threat to American interests and our national security? It's a great question.

Again, it's not the content that people are posting, you know, citing First Amendment reasons, but it is the fact that the Chinese Communist Party has the ability to push a narrative, to use people's data, to surveil in a way. You know, when we had Shochu, the CEO of TikTok in front of our committee, I asked him a particular question. I said, is it possible for the Chinese government, for the Chinese Communist Party to formulate a message and for that message to be pushed? into TikTok to users in any way, shape, or form that they choose.

And he answered yes. And it was already established in that hearing that they shared that ByteDance and their subsidiary companies, both the Chinese version of TikTok and TikTok itself, shared different personnel, different executives. And so when you think about the security risk, it's not just our data, yes, knowing American's data, being able to use American servicemen and women's data, again, them or for whatever purpose they want, that is very concerning. But also the fact that TikTok can heat or cool a certain issue, they can do that when it comes to industries they like or

industries they don't like. Let's think about trade with the Chinese Party, with the Chinese Communist Party. If they don't like a certain country's trade, well, they can heat or cool that message and either draw criticism to it or draw support to it in a way that they want. So when you're linked to a country that you know wants to undermine you, that you know is playing a long game, then you have to look at this through the lens of national security. We're obviously very concerned about a wide variety of issues, some that I just mentioned. What could the Chinese Communist Party do with the data that TikTok collects and that bite dance is required to provide to the CCP, if ask? I think at a micro level, they can use individuals' data against them in any different way.

But at a macro level, I think the sky is the limit. And this was brought up in our committee hearing. And let me make the point about this, that everyone is concerned about privacy. And we do intend to have a privacy bill that covers the wide variety, the wide range of social media platforms and throughout the internet. But on this particular bill, we had bipartisan support, and I've never seen in the four years that I've been here, Democrats and Republicans come together with an understanding that that data could be leveraged and used in a national security way to the detriment of the United States and of our interest. And those topics were brought up. So critical. How is TikTok in the U.S. different from TikTok in China? It's a great question. And TikTok in China is not controlled by TikTok.

It's controlled by another company, but still with a bite dance umbrella. But they censor a lot of the content there. We have Shochu these questions as well. Do your kids see the same things that American kids are seeing or that European kids are seeing? And he said no. And that's because the Chinese Communist Party censors much of the data. There are no First Amendment rights inside China with the control of the Chinese Communist Party. So I think that tells you pretty much everything you need to know.

And let me make this point that on the day we have. had this bill, we marked it up last week, that we received hundreds of phone calls. TikTok put a statement on the login page when kids were logging in on that day, they had to click a link, they had to input their zip code, and that zip code linked them directly to offices like mine. They called the phone number. We had multiple kids call, I mean hundreds of phone calls on that day, but multiple kids called and said, if I can't have TikTok, I'm going to kill myself. Think about the control that the Chinese Communist Party asserted on kids in the United States. If they can do that, again, the sky is the limit on the nefarious acts that they could use in a national security

way to undermine the interest of the U.S. That's really shocking to hear you say that, that you had TikTok users, young people, teenagers calling your office and saying, if TikTok is banned in the U.S., I'll kill myself. That is the ability of the company to really shape the message and shape a narrative and use complete falsehoods and lies to influence our young people. And that's, I mean, that is Exhibit A about why we're worried about this particular, this issue. Will this bill affect other social media platforms or could it in the future besides TikTok? It will not affect any American platforms. But if you are a platform and you're controlled by an adversarial nation,

and I mentioned those being Iran and Russian, North Korea, and obviously China, then yes, you have a choice. You either divest and you make sure that that data is protected and that a foreign adversarial country does not have control over it, but a friendly country with a friendly company has control over it. And that's listed pretty specifically in the bill, but in this case, it's only talking about those that are controlled like bite dance by the Chinese Communist Party.

Congressman, I know you have to run quickly. This bill is expected to pass in the House. What do we expect to see in the Senate? You know, I think the Senate is working on a very similar version. I'll be interested to see if they have the same bipartisan support. I think they will. Where they tweak it, how they make sure we protect First Amendment rights, and that content is not the topic, but conduct is,

I think we'll have a lot of overlapping interest there. So remains to be seen, but I do believe, that the national security message and concerns will continue to win out here. Congressman Fluger, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Today is a double header. So stay tuned because up next we are diving deeper into what is riding on this bill with Heritage Foundation Research Associate in the Tech Policy Center, Jake Denton. So what is going on with Ukraine? What is this deal?

with the border. How do you feel about school choice? These are the questions that come up to conservatives sitting at parties, at dinner, at family reunions. What do you say when these questions come up? I'm Mark Geinney, the host of the podcast for you. Heritage explains brought to you by all of your friends here at the Heritage Foundation. Through the creative use of stories, the knowledge of our super passionate experts, we bring you the most important policy issues of the day and break down in a way that is understandable. So check out Heritage Explains wherever you get your podcasts. Jake Denton serves as a research associate in the Tech Policy Center here at the Heritage Foundation.

Jake, thanks for being here. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. We just spoke with Congressman Fluger about the choice that is really before TikTok. Within this bill, the protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Application Act. It's a mouthful, but it's important for people to know the name. So TikTok, they could continue to operate in the U.S. if they choose to divest from bite dance. Do you think that this is something that TikTok would actually consider doing divesting from bite dance?

Well, you know, for the last four years, as divestment has floated around as a potential policy solution, they've been very insistent that they won't divest. But it really is their choice, right? Like the options are on the table. There are two available paths for them to select. They can either choose a divest and, you know, sell and retain a lot of that value, get it back. or they can choose to hold it and it will be delisted. So the option is theirs. On a practical tech side with delisting, what would that look like for a 15-year-old who has TikTok on their phone and this bill has been passed, let's say, we're down the road and both it's passed in the House and the Senate.

It's been signed by the president. now TikTok is a quote-unquote band or it's not allowed in the U.S. anymore. What happens to that app on someone's phone? Yes, this app is very clever. It requires delisting from the app stores. That's your distribution arm, right? So this is the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. They're not allowed to list the app to be available to consumers, so you can't log on and press download.

On the other side, there's the access concern. Those who have already downloaded it, how are you going to stop that? So it requires the Internet service providers, the ISPs, to block access to TikTok. And so that basically stops your distribution and stops the repeat access for those who have already downloaded the application. So it's very clever. And it's about as foolproof as you can get in this environment. It's pretty much all you could ask for. Okay.

So obviously right now, we don't know for sure yet if this is going to pass. But it looks like it likely will in the house. There's bipartisan backing. As far as the Senate goes, I ask Congressman Fluger what he thinks we'll see in the Senate. What are your thoughts on support that we have seen? Our members on both sides of the aisle coming out in the Senate supporting this. Yeah, well, it passed with flying colors out of energy and commerce, 50 to nothing, right? Just unanimous, which literally never happens.

It was kind of shocking for us to see. And we're expecting a very resounding victory for the bill tomorrow on that vote. But as it heads to the Senate, there's a lot of questions. around who is actually going to line up and support. For years now, a lot of these Republicans and a lot of the Democrats have pounded the drum. They have all these great talking points about how TikTok is a national security threat. But there's been in action in the Senate on this, right? There's countless proposals from the Senate to do a TikTok ban, TikTok restriction.

None of them have ever moved. We haven't even gotten a markup or a floor vote. So they've had the opportunity to move on this, and they have chosen not to. It's really a question for leadership. What's unique here is President Biden has come out and said he'd sign it. So it puts the ball in Senator Schumer's court to actually bring it to a vote. But it's really not even clear at this point if he'll do that. So a lot remains to be seen.

I don't think it's going to be as easy as the House, but it's clear the American people and the House of Representatives are behind this. They see it as a logical and sound solution to the problem. And so the Senate should advance the bill. I think that's the mandate as it leaves the House. Jake, what do you view as the most significant concern regarding data privacy and national security when it comes to foreign-owned social media platforms operating specifically within the United States? Yeah, you know, so we already have seen the government device spans, right? So this idea that a congressman or a employee in a state capital can't have TikTok on their work phone.

And like, why is that? Well, it's a tool for surveillance. Everything from your keystrokes, your clipboard, things that you're copying and pasting are all being collected. They're being sent to TikTok from your device to theirs, their servers, and then go out to China, outbound data flows, right? And so the real concern is the way that this all stacks up. A lot of people don't really realize that uploading the one video that pulls the biometric data and then combining that with the information

that maybe you willingly disclose, your birth date, your first name and last name, your email, and then you stack that with your geolocation patterns. Suddenly they have a very good understanding of who you are, And this is all information that they can leverage. How do they leverage it? Well, we've seen with the journalists who have covered Bight Dance and TikTok's business practices that they've actually sent people to harass them. They're able to track them down and bully them.

They're surveilling individuals of importance, you know, people that they view as a threat. And they can do that for anybody. Not only Bight Dance, but the Chinese Communist Party due to the access through their national security laws. They can just request the data. And Bight Dance has to comply or they get shut down. So it's a huge vulnerability. It's one that is going to continue to snowball. TikTok is just the first piece we're breaking off of this.

But the minute we pass this, the question is like, how much more can we do? Right? Because these are a dime a dozen at this point. We've really dropped the ball when it comes to addressing these and we're playing catch up. Well, this is critical. It has the interest of many, many Americans, since so many Americans do use TikTok and so many Americans are concerned about how TikTok is using this information. So we will be following this very closely here at the Daily Signal. Jake Denton of the Heritage Foundation.

Thank you for your time. Thank you for further explaining this bill to us. We really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. With that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for joining us both for the conversation with Congressman August Flugger and with the Heritage Foundation's Jake Denton.

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