Today, Explained - Ban TikTok?

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

Politicians across the United States are calling for an outright ban on the popular social media platform. Alex Heath, deputy editor at The Verge, explains how TikTok hopes to pre-empt one from ever passing. This episode was produced by Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard with help from Haleema Shah, engineered by Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained   Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to Today Explained. TikTok. You love it. Your grandma loves it. Your nephew loves it. Your dog's kind of into it. You know who's not into it? Congress. The time to wait to secure the privacy of American citizens is long past. The federal government. We do have national security concerns, at least from the FBI's end, about TikTok. State governments. But just this month, more than a dozen Republican governors have moved to ban the app on government devices.

Colleges. The crackdown on TikTok continues with Alabama's Auburn University now banning the video sharing app on campus, Wi-Fi and school devices. Other publicly funded universities are expected to soon take similar action. The movement to ban TikTok. Ahead on Today Explained. Groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. Explained. Alex Heath, Deputy Editor at The Verge. What is going on with TikTok right now?

A bunch of people want to ban it, and no one really knows what's going to happen. And people have wanted to ban it for a while, but these calls are getting louder. That's right. This started really in the Trump administration. We may be banning TikTok. We may be doing some other things. There are a couple of options, but we are looking at a lot of alternatives with respect to TikTok. We may be doing some other things. There are a couple of options, but we are looking at a lot of alternatives with respect to TikTok. And has since grown quite loud. The fact is, the algorithms that determine what you see on TikTok is determined out of Beijing by China. And the proof is, if you look at what Chinese kids are seeing on their version of TikTok,

which emphasizes science and engineering versus what our kids and kids around the world are seeing, it is dramatically different. So both from a data collection and from, frankly, a propaganda tool, it is of huge concern. And now the CEO of TikTok, Shou Chu, is actually going to be testifying in Congress next month. So there's a lot going on. You could kind of just throw a dart in the congressional halls and probably hit some member that wants it banned. I want to ban TikTok for a very simple reason.

They allow the Chinese Communist Party to gain access to all of the private data on any device in America that's using TikTok. And that's a national security threat, but it's a direct threat to our way of life, our economics. It's allowed them to interfere in the midterm elections. This company should be banned.

I don't know why they're allowed to operate in the United States. The obligations of TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, under Chinese law, requires it at a moment's notice when Beijing asks for it, demands it, to share any data that it has acquired on the site. And I think that that could force TikTok

to surrender sensitive data from Americans. A bunch of states have banned TikTok on government phones. As of this week, five states, Texas, Maryland, South Dakota, South Carolina, and Nebraska, all with Republican governors, are banning TikTok from being used on state networks and devices. There's actually a federal ban as well. The Senate now passing a new GOP-led bill

that would keep government devices from accessing TikTok. This administration needs to force TikTok to put up a firewall, the U.S. TikTok, between itself and Beijing. And for different reasons, probably just because students spend too much time on it, you're starting to see TikTok banned at college universities across the country. Not allowed to post TikToks anymore.

The University of Texas in Austin joining a growing list of schools blocking TikTok on campus Wi-Fi networks. We've all, you know, used college Wi-Fi and it's easy to get around. So I don't know if that ban necessarily means anything. But selfishly, every American tech company that competes with TikTok, you know,

Meta, Facebook, Snap, Twitter, would probably secretly love for TikTok to be banned, right? It's always nice to have a competitor taken off the field. But at the same time, I think a lot of the American companies are worried about the precedent that a ban would set in terms of the government being able to kick companies out of the U.S. like that. The main concern is TikTok's parent company. It's called ByteDance, and it's this giant tech conglomerate based in Beijing that operates dozens and dozens of apps around the world. There's a Chinese version of TikTok that

TikTok was based off of called Douyin that is huge, makes billions of dollars a year. And ByteDance controls TikTok effectively, right? So even though they have created a separate org and they're wanting to even further wall that off if the government allows them to and says that's enough to not get banned, it's an app that is controlled by a Chinese company. And the concern is that if you're a Chinese company, you kind of have to do whatever the Chinese government tells you to do. We, the FBI, do have national security concerns about the app. So the idea of entrusting that much data, that much ability to shape content and engage in influence operations, that much access to people's devices in effect to that government is something that concerns us. And so at the heart of that, there's really two concerns, which is that one, TikTok could be used to spy on Americans to harvest their data, their location, their preferences, what have you. And then on the other side, there's the fear that

there could be some kind of pressure campaign from the Chinese government to manipulate what people see in their TikTok for you page. TikTok is not unique anymore, but it was unique at the time when it broke out in the U.S. because of the way that its algorithm really dictates what you see. It's not really based on who you follow, like Facebook and Instagram and what we've traditionally been used to with social media. It gives them the ability to control the recommendation algorithm, which allows them to manipulate content and if they want to, to use it for influence operations. And so the fear is that that powerful algorithm that now a billion plus people around the world use a lot could somehow be manipulated in a way that could compromise

American national security by the Chinese government. And so those are the two main concerns. In that context, is this app any worse than the other social media apps we have and use? The ones that, you know, lead to deaths in Myanmar because of misinformation on Facebook or, you know, the one with the loudest man in the world sounding off and twisting the algorithm to suit his own ego? Is TikTok actually thus far worse? Or are we just waiting for it to one day be worse? It's not worse on the surface. I would say the only thing that's separate that I think, you know, the American tech leaders have a point in raising is that at least they're subject to U.S. jurisdiction and U.S. oversight. They're U.S. companies, right? So they're subject to U.S. law and TikTok is subject to Chinese law.

And it's a very different dynamic. And so, no, TikTok is not doing anything more nefarious than any other of social media companies that we talk about that are based in America. But it's not an American company. And so that's become the issue. And that's the thing that I'm not even sure anyone knows how to actually address still. And let's just cut to the chase right here. Do we have any evidence to suggest that TikTok has ever done anything untowards with the massive amounts of data that this company has? Not really. And I say not really, but there was this one thing that happened last year where ByteDance actually admitted that TikTok employees who were based in the U.S., but still TikTok employees actually improperly accessed the location data of journalists who

were covering the company for Forbes and the Financial Times. What? That sounds like a big one. Yeah, it's not good. We knew that a ByteDance team called the Internal Audit and Risk Control Department had tracked the specific location of individual U.S. citizens for a purpose that didn't have to do with advertising or sorting them content in the app. We were the people who were being tracked. They're nice to you unless you happen to be saying nasty things about them? Well, you know, they say this was part of a leak investigation. And, you know, to be perfectly frank, like, this is common. You know, American companies do this to their employees if they suspect them of linking confidential information. But the issue is that TikTok's out there saying we would never, you know, spy on anyone, look at their data.

And then this comes out in the middle of very heated negotiations with the government where senior officials in the U.S. government are becoming increasingly hawkish about TikTok. And it's really set them back and set them back in a way that could hurt their ability to operate long-term in the U.S. That's really the only public example that we've seen of data being improperly used. That's not to say it hasn't been used in other ways that we don't know about. And in terms of the other concern of manipulating the algorithm, we don't really have evidence of that either in a way that should be concerning for government officials. So a lot of this is, frankly, politics. It's becoming increasingly trendy to be hawkish

on China and Chinese companies in the U.S. And, you know, a lot of senators are just kind of piling on with each other. TikTok is not as innocent as it sounds. It is owned by a Chinese based AI company called ByteDance. Just about every Chinese company like this is owned or controlled by the government. That's the way China works. So when you go on TikTok, China has your data. Saying, you know, no, there are actual concerns here about American data and China being able to potentially manipulate the algorithm and we may need to just ban TikTok. And so the conversation was about a ban. And then when Trump left office, TikTok quickly changed it to, well, you don't need to totally ban us. What if we just wall things off in a way

that ensures ByteDance, the Chinese parent company, can't meddle in TikTok in the U.S. Is there a chance that that could actually ultimately lead to this wildly popular social media app getting banned in the United States? I mean, never say never, but I would put the odds of a ban at being very low, even at this point. Merely because of the precedent it would set, TikTok would certainly challenge it in the courts. It's kind of unclear exactly how the government would legally do it. But I'm told, and you've done reporting on this,

that if the government were to ban TikTok, they kind of got a backup plan. That's right. They have this thing they're working on called Project Texas. Cue your music. And then I'll cue. I'll cue. Yeah, after you cue that, I'll say something like, and unfortunately we have to take a break in the middle of our show, but we'll talk about it in a moment on Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from Aura.

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Today Explained, we're back. Alex Heath, Deputy Editor, The Verge. And before we took a little break, Alex told us that TikTok has a plan in process just to make sure they don't get banned. And it's called Project Texas. What is it and why is it called Project Texas, Alex? Well, it's called Project Texas because that's where Oracle, the company that TikTok is trying to build this proposal with, is based. And it was also just an internal code name that leaked in reporting and they stuck with it because it also is American sounding, right? So Project Texas is this thing that I was invited to hear about at TikTok's headquarters actually recently in Los Angeles. And we were brought into TikTok's office,

which, you know, it looks like any other tech office, right? You've got like the fancy logo out front where you can take selfies, really nice conference rooms, et cetera. Did you take a selfie? I did not take a selfie. Professional. I have evidence I was there, but I did not take a selfie. And we met with, you know, executives there. And then they walked us around the corner to another building where they have this thing they're calling their transparency center.

They talk about Project Texas and they show people, you know, a basic kind of one-on-one of how TikTok works. This is really designed for lawmakers to come in and get a crash course in TikTok. Were there like portraits of Chairman Mao on the walls and stuff? Yeah. Well, it was interesting because, you know, TikTok is very much trying to distance itself from ByteDance because it doesn't want to be forced to totally spin off from ByteDance. So, you know, it uses language like, you know, we're an American company, you know, with American employees. We don't have any ties to China. But then you're in the office

and it's not even really that subtle. Like the Wi-Fi says ByteDance. ByteDance has its own version of Slack that they built for all their employees globally. And that's like on the conference room TVs, right? There's just all these reminders that TikTok is not its own entity, right? And so that's in my mind as I'm hearing these leaders from the company, you know, pitch this plan to be technically separate, but not fully separate. So the plan with Project Texas is to create a new entity in the U.S. for TikTok that is legally separate and separates all the code, importantly, from the rest of TikTok globally and ByteDance. And there's a bunch of auditors that are brought in that are approved by the U.S. government. There's a separate board that reports to the U.S. government. And Oracle is the quote-unquote trusted partner that is reviewing all of TikTok's code,

that is literally recompiling the app and putting it in the App Store itself. So TikTok can't even be trusted to submit its own app to the App Store under this setup. And it really positions TikTok as like a defense contractor in terms of the compliance, the government oversight that they will have to go through to form this entity. It's very strange. It's frankly unprecedented for a company to propose something like this in the US. TikTok says it's already spent over $1.5 billion

trying to set up Project Texas, and it estimates it will cost it over like $700 million a year to operate. So this is not a trivial operation. And this is all designed to avoid the government trying to force a ban or actual spinoff where a separate entity is created totally away from ByteDance. Because you got to think like, yeah, you know, all these employees for Project Texas and this new entity in the U.S., they will be under these really strict compliance regulations with the government. They're still bite dance employees at the end of the day. Like they're compensated in bite dance equity. And I'm not technical enough to understand if this will actually assuage fears adequately in terms of like, can you do a line by line read of TikTok's code and

somehow determine that the Chinese government is not asking for data or, you know, trying to influence how some engineer somewhere programs things to, you know, amplify certain content over others. It's unclear because no one has seen this, right? So when we walk into this transparency center, which, you know, I've done some of these tours before with tech companies and, you know, they're optics driven. So like you get in there and it's like a giant screen that you can touch. Like here's how TikTok works. And we can go in another room and then see a basic version

of what it's like to be a content moderator for TikTok. So it's a way to learn about the policies. Nothing super revelatory that you couldn't learn from Googling, right? But behind this wall in a corner of this transparency center is this room we weren't allowed to go in as journalists. And TikTok says if you sign a non-disclosure agreement, put your phone in a locker, go through a metal detector, and go in this room, there are servers that house the TikTok source code. I find this very hard to believe.

A lot of this is just we're trusting TikTok at this point that this is how things are going to work. And the government isn't really saying anything except for these really increasingly hawkish statements we're getting in the press and in hearings. So do you think Project Texas will be enough to alleviate all the concerns at state governments, the federal government, federal agencies, college campuses? I don't know. And I don't think TikTok knows either. I think the reason they're doing this big press push, inviting people like me into the Transparency Center, having their CEO testify in Congress, is that they're partly just frustrated that negotiations with the government have drawn on for as long as they have, and that the government seems to have changed its mind back and forth several times. And they're also, I think, really doing the best they can kind of in the ninth inning to say, like, look, we care.

We're serious about this. Like, you don't need to ban us. Like, this is a really robust program that we think will alleviate all the concerns. And the problem is, like, we have a pitch of what it is, but it hasn't really been exposed in an independent way, like how this program actually works. So we're kind of just waiting and seeing. And I think TikTok is too. Their fate's kind of going to be decided by what this Committee for Foreign Investment

in the United States, CFIUS, thinks here in the near term. It's not like if Project Texas gets totally turned on tomorrow that there's not like if Project Texas, you know, gets totally turned on tomorrow that there's not Chinese employees involved in the strategy and decision making and maintaining of TikTok. That will still be the case. It will just be us trusting all these auditors and Oracle and all this to make sure that TikTok's not being manipulated. If you don't trust TikTok now, just wait till a billionaire is in charge and then you can trust it. Well, a billionaire is already in charge, but it's just, you know, do you trust, you know, ByteDance or do you trust Larry Ellison? Right. So, yeah, I don't know. I don't, they don't really know either. And I think that's why they're doing this kind of last-ditch

press campaign. Well, Alex, you've been inside the belly of the ByteDance. Did you feel more inclined to trust anything going on here, having walked the walk? and keep TikTok going. I don't think TikTok is incentivized as a for-profit entity to be subjugated to Chinese government influence or, you know, spying requests. Like it doesn't, it doesn't align with their incentives as a business, right? But there's still that uncomfortable dilemma of they're still owned by a Chinese company at the end of the day. And even if Project Texas is approved, that's still going to be the case. And, you know, like I'm on this tour and I ask at one point, you know, what happens if an employee in China makes a request that's, you know, not documented, just like on the phone or something to an employee at the U.S. entity of TikTok to do something? Like what's to keep that employee from saying no? And I didn't get

an answer i was actually just told that wasn't appropriate for this transparency center tour wow please do not ask critical questions during your tour during your transparency tour well there's some there's so much of the optics here like the transparency tour we you know we weren't allowed to quote the people presenting directly or name them which to me suggests that there's concern that people will say something that comes back to bite TikTok in the future. Wow. Right. So, you know, it's when you have a transparency center touras works will actually keep the chinese government from manipulating anything and i should say tiktok says like you know we have never been asked by

the chinese government to do any of this and even if they do ask we would refuse that kind of belies logic for a couple of reasons, mainly because, you know, from my, you know, talking to current and former TikTok employees, including some who have worked in Beijing, it's not like they would necessarily even know if the Chinese government asked for something. Or it's not like, you know, in the U.S. where, you know, you need a subpoena or, you know, there's lawyers get involved. Like in China, it can just kind of happen, right? It's just, it's, there's really, you know, ByteDance's board has a Chinese government official on it, right? There's really no separation like we have in the U.S. And the idea that they would refuse it is kind of crazy to me because if you're looking at like potentially being jailed in China for refusing a government request, you're really not going to do it. So yeah, I don't know.

There's just some really uncomfortable questions here. And TikTok's just been put in a really uncomfortable spot where they're trying to be this global slash American company while also having this tie to this very controversial Chinese company. Alex Heath, Deputy Editor at The Verge. Find his work at theverge.com. Our program today was produced by Hadi Mawagdi. He had help from Matthew Collette, Laura Bullard, Patrick Boyd, Halima Shah, and Paul Robert Mounsey.

This is Today Explained. Thank you.