What A Day - Let's TikTok Business

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

Extreme weather continues in the US, with over 4.5 million acres burned across the West Coast and a Category 2 hurricane bearing down on the Gulf Coast. Scientists say two Antarctic glaciers are breaking off and could contribute to large-scale sea level rise, underscoring the need for aggressive environmental policy in the US and abroad. Oracle is close to taking over TikTok’s US operations following scuttled negotiations between Microsoft and ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok. Oracle would be a “trusted tech partner,” meaning the deal isn’t a full-on sale—instead, Oracle would manage TikTok’s US data. And in headlines: a whistleblower at a privately-run ICE detention camp in Georgia, comparing the pandemic’s economic consequences to the ’09 financial crisis, and scientists discover a perfectly-preserved cave bear in Serbia.Show Links..."The Trump Administration Is Reversing 100 Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List." https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html

It's Tuesday, September 15th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick, and this is What A Day, where we have just appointed ourselves the new non-problematic authors of the Harry Potter series. Yeah, if J.K. Rowling is ruining Harry Potter for you, don't worry. Now we wrote it. I am so proud of inventing Hagrid. On today's show, what do you need to know about TikTok and the impending deal between the U.S. and Chinese companies, then some headlines. But first, the latest. Wildfires don't skip towns that voted a certain way. The impacts of climate change don't pick and choose. That's because it's not a partisan phenomenon. It's science. It's exactly right. It is science. Well, that was Democratic presidential nominee

Joe Biden speaking yesterday about the wildfires and his plan to tackle climate change, which includes rejoining the Paris climate agreement and achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Meanwhile, Trump was in California meeting with Governor Gavin Newsom and other local officials, where he stuck to his line that poor forest management by Western states is the root cause of the fires, even though the federal government,

not the states, control much of the land. He also said this. It'll start getting cooler. You just watch. I wish science agreed with you. Oh, well, I don't think science knows, actually. That is the most embarrassing thing he said in the past couple of days, I guess. I don't know.

Well, a federal report from government scientists two years ago found fossil fuel emissions could triple the frequency of severe fires in the West. Trump, of course, has spent his presidency rolling back or weakening every major federal policy aimed at reducing emissions. That's according to a New York Times tracker, which we'll put in our show notes. Yeah, that is a very important thing to keep an eye on as this administration goes on. So, Akilah, that's how the candidates responded to the issue yesterday. But let's quickly get into what's going on with the fires. Yeah, so the fires are continuing to rage on on the West Coast. The AP is reporting that 35 people have now been killed in Oregon, Washington and California.

We talked about the size of the fires yesterday. Over 4.5 million acres have burned across the West. Another way to put it, that's more than the entire state of Connecticut, plus another million acres. Smoke inhalation remains a major threat. And in other climate news, we got data yesterday from U.S. government scientists that this summer, the northern hemisphere was the hottest on record. The temperature averaged more than two degrees Fahrenheit higher than normal. And globally, August was the second hottest it's been since record keeping began in 1880, losing only to August 2016. These are worrying milestones while wildfires ravage the West Coast and five tropical cyclones are spinning in the Atlantic

at the same time for only the second time in history. Yeah, it is very clear what is going on to the environment. And to the point about the hurricanes, there's a lot of talk about Hurricane Sally in the Gulf and the damage it might create in the coming days. Yeah, so as we go to record, Hurricane Sally is approaching the Gulf Coast and strengthened yesterday to a Category 2 hurricane. Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi have declared states of emergency, and there's particular concern about flooding. And while all this is happening, scientists say two Antarctic

glaciers are breaking off and could contribute to large-scale sea level rise. The new findings were published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and they come from analysis of satellite images. So those images show that a naturally occurring buffer system that prevents the glaciers from melting quickly is breaking down and could potentially unleash way more ice into the sea in the coming years. So I hate to be that person who delivers this kind of news, but we are long overdue to take climate change seriously. And regardless of Donald Trump denying climate change and saying that temperatures will get cooler in the same way he said COVID-19 will just go away like a miracle, these major weather events don't seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

No, and totally the opposite is happening and it's terrifying. Yeah. But let's move on to my favorite distraction, TikTok. There have been some major updates on TikTok, the app that has taught us dances, trolled a rally for the president of the United States, and harvested our data like everything else on our phone. So last month, we talked about Trump's executive order that threatened to block the app in the United States unless ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, sold its U.S. operations by September 20th. With just a few days to go, it looks like there's a buyer. So Gideon, fill us in. Yeah, so this has been going on for months, and it's difficult to detach it from the broader

geopolitical fight that is going on between the U.S. and China, especially as China has imposed new national security laws in Hong Kong. But the news here is that Oracle, the American computer technology company, won that bid for TikTok's US operations over Microsoft. Oracle is mostly a software and cloud computing company that does data storage and other related things for businesses. There's reporting from the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere that Oracle is going to be announced as a, quote, trusted tech partner. That's actually how I'm describing all my relationships during the pandemic at the moment. In all seriousness, this phrase, trusted tech partner,

appears to mean that this deal is not going to be a full-on sale, but instead, Oracle will manage TikTok's U.S. data. So the deal hasn't been finalized, but if that is the arrangement, ByteDance would keep its ownership of TikTok, according to The Washington Post. That's not exactly what Trump's executive action sought to do. But yesterday, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said that the Oracle bid is happening and that the government is going to review it this week. So we will see if they sign

off on it. Yeah. And what else do we know about what this means for the company and the U.S. and users who are me and want to know what's happening? Yes. So according to the reporting and what Mnuchin said, this could actually lead to a U.S. headquarters of the company and 20,000 jobs. And the thought is that if the headquarters are moved outside of China, the company wouldn't be subject to having to share user data with the Chinese government if they requested it. The White House has been saying that they are worried that American information, basically data from you and all of us scrolling through TikTok, could be passed on to the Chinese government, though ByteDance and TikTok have both denied that they would do that or that they helped the Chinese government at all.

All right. Well, leading up to this, Microsoft was also in the mix and had more money to offer. So how did Oracle end up with the winning bid? Yeah, that's really the question right now, I think. And there seem to be two things that are going on. So we'll start with Microsoft. You're 100% right that they seem to have more money to spend here and also seem better equipped and ready to address these supposed concerns that were coming from the administration about TikTok and data security. In a short statement on Sunday, when Microsoft lost the deal, they said in part, quote, we are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok's users while protecting national security interests. But there's reporting from the New York Times saying that recent regulations that were imposed by China helped kill the deal with Microsoft. So those regulations came last

month and basically bar TikTok from giving over its technology to a foreign buyer without the Chinese government signing off on it. That made things complicated for Microsoft and the kind of deal that they wanted to do in all of this. Last month, Microsoft said they basically wanted to have control over TikTok's computer code and algorithm, which is part of what makes it so addictive to everybody that's using it. They know what we want to see and we keep watching. That was also meant to alleviate some national security concerns by preventing misinformation from being served up on the app and further protecting American user data. So that's kind of how the new China regulations appear to have scuttled things for Microsoft. Yeah, which brings us to Oracle.

Yes. So as of yet, they reportedly haven't gone as far in their demands to get TikTok's algorithm as Microsoft has. But on the user data front, there's some reporting that suggests that part of this is a way for Oracle to try to compete against these companies like Amazon, who are far ahead in cloud computing. But the other key bit of context here is that Oracle and the Trump administration have close ties. So just this year, the founder of Oracle, Larry Ellison, held a fundraiser for the president

and Safra Katz, Oracle's chief executive, was on the transition team. And before the news of this impending deal was announced, Trump was saying that he supported Oracle winning out here. But it goes deeper than that, too. Ellison was reportedly involved in convincing Trump that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine could be crucial treatments for COVID-19, and at one point he wanted to use Oracle to collect data on its usage by doctors. And before that, a Labor Department whistleblower alleged that the administration's labor

secretary intervened in a pay discrimination case at Oracle. So a lot to unpack here about an app that has an estimated 92 million users in the U.S. alone. We're going to keep track of it, but that is the latest for now. It's Tuesday WOD Squad, and for today's Tim Check, we've got a message for anyone looking for life on Mars. Don't sleep on Venus. So scientists recently detected phosphine in that planet's clouds.

This molecule, which smells really bad, points to the existence of simple organisms that produce it as a byproduct. This might sound unlikely to WOD listeners who know astronomy, since the environment of Venus is extremely hot, highly acidic, and would seem uninhabitable. But scientists who found the phosphine say that they've ruled out all other likely explanations. So, Giddy, are you befriending a germ from Venus or are you keeping your guard up? Guard is way up and my mask is going back on. I don't want hot fart gas from extraterrestrial areas approaching me. I would much prefer,

you know, a nicer approach from an alien, perhaps like a handshake, an elbow bump, something like that. This seems a little bit, a little bit scary to me. You don't trust it? You don't trust the secret aliens from Venus? I don't, I don't trust anything that could sustain itself in like 800 degree surface temperatures. So if they're purely existing in the atmosphere,

that also I guess means that they're fine being very, very cold. So either way, there's something that is not for me in this equation. I think that I need to be in a climate that is not that. Our climate is not much better, but I need to be in a climate that is not that.

Our climate is not much better, but I need to be in a climate that is not that. That's fair. I get it. So same question. Are you approaching the phosphenes? Are you hanging out with these guys? 1000%. I'm literally packing right now. We have a really good plan for where to eat out when I get there.

I think that they seem really chill. You know, things have gotten really out of control on earth. I don't know why I wouldn't try to make new friends who aren't, you know, corrupted by everything that's happening here. This place has been pretty much on, you know, going down for, I guess since its inception, things have only gotten worse. First it was the dinosaurs. Now here we are. So yeah, I definitely would absolutely take friendship with any of these beings, whatever

they look like, whatever germs look like on another planet, you know, I'll take it. I think that's a really optimistic view. Maybe they could also teach you how to like acclimate to the climate and then the climate's not really a concern anymore. Whereas like here, everyone's just like, let it burn, I guess. Yeah, maybe they just abandon their bodies. They're like, I don't have to be on the surface to have a good time, which like, I think that that's a vibe we can all adhere to. I agree. Yeah. Maybe they just abandoned their bodies. They're like, I don't have to be on the surface to have a good time, which like, I think that that's a vibe we can all adhere to.

I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Well, just like that, we have checked our temps. Everybody stay safe. I hope you make some germ friends from another planet and we'll be back with another temp check tomorrow. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines.

Two members of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department are out of surgery after being ambushed and shot in their patrol car on Saturday by a still unidentified gunman. President Trump and Joe Biden both condemned the shooting, which also led to the arrest of one protester and one reporter who attended a small demonstration at a hospital soon after it. LASD deputies charged KPCC's Josie Wong with obstruction, alleging through their social media accounts that she ran towards them and didn't identify herself as press. Now, videos she recorded on the scene contradict both of those claims. LA County's inspector general has opened investigations into Wong's arrest, and the LASD is offering a $100,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the man who shot the two deputies. Multiple legal advocacy

groups filed a complaint yesterday on behalf of a nurse who alleged a wide range of medical abuses at a privately operated ICE detention center in Georgia. Whistleblower Don Wooten says she saw management systematically underreport COVID-19 cases at the facility by denying tests to symptomatic detainees. That kind of undercounting has been reported at other ICE facilities where quarantining people who were COVID positive would have put a strain on resources. Wooten also alleges that women housed at her facility received hysterectomies at an alarmingly high rate by the same doctor with little to no explanation of why they were being operated on. Multiple detainees corroborated Wooten's account. A spokesperson for ICE said the detention center has been investigated several times and shown to be in compliance with national standards and added that, quote, unproven allegations made without any fact checkable specifics should be treated with the appropriate skepticism they deserve. Yeah, and that statement should be treated with the appropriate skepticism it deserves. The economic damage to the global economy has been more than four times as severe as the 2009 financial crisis. That's according to a new

report from the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation. Millennials, this isn't all about you, but you do have permission to feel really bad for yourselves for the next 15 minutes. The OECD warned that global unemployment could double if a second wave of infections forces more mass quarantines and lockdowns. But even without more shutdowns, the report finds that the pandemic has already erased five years worth of income growth around the world. Data from 2009 show that economic downturns do not impact everyone equally. In the U.S., the financial crisis and uneven recovery, particularly gains in the stock market, increased economic inequality and the racial wealth gap. Bears typically hibernate for a few months in the winter, but one overachieving bear took it

a step further, becoming trapped in permafrost for between 22,000 and 39,500 years before it was discovered by reindeer herders in Serbia, according to a university there yesterday. Scientists said the Ice Age cave bear is a remarkable specimen, the first of its species to be recovered with all of its internal organs. I believe the technical term for those is bear tubes. Of course, the welcome home cave bear parties we are all throwing to celebrate this event will be bittersweet.

Melting Arctic permafrost is a consequence of global warming, meaning we never would have found the mythical Encino bear if we weren't in the midst of an unprecedented environmental crisis. I'm able to separate the art from the artist and say I still love and respect the bear. I do hope the scientists that are studying his organs can tell us that he supports the Green New Deal. Me too. And those are the bear. I do hope the scientists that are studying his organs can tell us that he supports the Green New Deal. Me too. And those are the headlines.

Before we go, we want to let you know that there's a new episode of Missing America out now. It's all about the seemingly endless wars in the Middle East. Host Ben Rhodes talks to two former political prisoners,

Mohammed Sultan and Jason Rezaian. So go check that out and subscribe to Missing America wherever you get your podcasts. That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, feel better, millennials, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just science reports on the Encino bear like me,

what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And we'll see you on Jupiter. It can't be any worse than what I'm dealing with on the West Coast right now. It's true. More gas, maybe.

What A Day is a Crooked Media production. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tun is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kshaka.