WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Social Mediators: The TikTok Ban (for real this time)

Episode Date: January 25, 2025

This week we discuss the brief TikTok ban and the future of TikTok in America.  Tune in to hear about the winter boot revolution, potential Meta-Trump collusion, and all of the people who have expressed concerns that they cannot live without the app. 

This is the social mediators on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM, where we examine the truth disparity between what's in social media and what's actually true. I'm Jillian Parks. And I'm Garrett Gulesby. And we are back for our first episode of 2025. Woohoo. Episode 71. This is now the eighth semester of this show for us. Through rain or shine.

Yeah. Or really, really cold temperatures because it's freezing outside rain. Yes. It is too cold for two Texans. Not a fan. My car doesn't like it either. My car the other day was two degrees outside. I tried to start it and said,

Nope. What are you talking about? You're walking everywhere. Don't do that. Yeah, same. Which is really fun and awesome. But that's not what we're talking about today. Today we're talking about the only thing that we really could talk about at this point in time, which is the TikTok ban.

I mean, there is the presidential inauguration. No. Who even? You know, South Korea is ousting its president. He got arrested. I don't, I didn't hear about any of that. All I hear is TikTok. There's a couple wars, but there's a ceasefire.

happening in Israel and yeah Hamas their hostages are getting released and oh and TikTok got banned Oh okay okay okay so that's what we're gonna talk about today That seems like the most important thing It just felt appropriate considering we've done a TikTok episode before

Which was I think probably a year ago maybe Sounds right Of a bunch of hoopla about TikTok getting banned and then it didn't So this go around I think a lot of people were like This will just be that again And then that's not what happened So I have my spiel broken up and did before

during after. Excellent. So before there was information circulating, people were aware that TikTok was going to be banned was the idea. January 19th was the big day. And it was vaguely explained on social

media as for security reasons, which if you did any further digging, told you it was about data mining and analytics and the Chinese government having access to American citizens information.

That was the idea that was getting pushed around but there's not a ton more to find about why TikTok was banned at that point in time. Still isn't now so you'll have to come in

and help me there. But I will tell you what social media has decided it is and social media has decided it's actually just a big test that the government is doing to see how docile

these citizens can possibly be. This is a social experiment. Yes. Basically I saw a TikTok from somebody who presumably isn't a foreign country. I'm going to go with Canada, but I don't really know, basically saying like, how 1984 are you guys going to let your government get before you start a revolution?

That was the prompting, and it was like a one-minute-long video talking about that. And social media responded with the most brain dead take I've seen in a long time, which is starting a social media revolution. It is, like it circulates using the hashtag cute winter boots. What? Explain this to me, please. Well, no, because I can't. Because it's just the hashtag they've used

so that they can be, quote, undetectable by the algorithm. But this is the movement. So the idea is like, if you see cute winter boots on a video, that means that that person also wants to be part of the revolution. So all the Utah moms are caught up in this despite trying not to be.

Is that what you're telling me? Potentially. Okay. And the only acts they've committed as members of the revolution are posting on TikTok and writing Deny, Defend, Depose on U.S. currency. So who is they?

People on TikTok. People on social media. People my age younger on TikTok writing Deny, defend, depose on dollar bills. And I could actually probably do an entire episode on that because that was something that, I don't want to talk about it, but that was something that was said,

and now they're using it as a hashtag for a revolution. And people are like, is they're going to, Are we actually going to do anything? Are there going to be any protests? And all the comments on those videos are basically just like, the algorithm is suppressing us. So right now we just need to get people to see it.

And then we can start planning. So the plan is to revolt against the government ban of TikTok by getting more. No, no, no, no, just the government in general. The whole government. The whole government. And all of the comments are always, it's like a sentence that says, like, I love my cute winter boots. And certain letters are capitalized to spell out revolution or eat the rich.

Or kill the rich. And I'm like, are you guys trying to kill people with this? Do they actually mean one ought to eat a rich person? No, eat the rich just is a social media phrase. It just generally means like if you have a lot of money, we want to kill you. But no, I don't think anybody actually wants to kill anybody. No one wants to actually eat rich people. No, I don't think it's about eating.

I think it's just about people not liking. Anyway, before the ban also, like right before the ban, I saw this firsthand. There were just a lot of influencers being really stupid. They were posting last minute confessions that last minute got them canceled. which was really funny to watch. One girl posted a video saying she'd never actually drank the coffee she made in her TikToks. No way. And she never actually did the workouts that she, like, planned for people.

These are people that routinely put on their page. These are the things that I do. Like, I'm trying this coffee. And she never actually... And she actually never actually did it. Wow. Which is pretty silly to me. I mean, there's a little bit more nuance to that, but that blew up and people were really upset about that.

People were doing these, like, farewell live streams where they were crying. James Charles posted a really funny video of him crying. It was just really emotional. people were posting old drafts of videos because they thought they were never going to get them back. It was like just this swell of content of people just being like, I don't know how I'm going to go on. Then the app probably went dark around maybe like 11 p.m. that night. And there's just an error message saying like TikTok has been in the U.S. We're working on a solution.

It was done. It was down for about 12 hours before people started saying it's back. TikTok's back. And I went to my phone the first time and wasn't able to get it back. And then the second time it was just there again. And I was like, okay, the app was there the whole time. It's just whether or not you could scroll through anything. It was just giving you an error message.

And when you came back to the app, there was a message that came up on your screen that was like, thank you President Trump for trying to work toward a solution with us, which I think is extremely silly. Like it just makes the whole thing look like a PR stunt. It makes the whole thing look like Trump was orchestrating it. I don't know if he is or he was, but it's really silly to watch. him respond like that. He then posted on Sunday in a truth social post that he was going to allow like service providers to provide TikTok without any sort of like fines. There'd be no like nobody was getting in trouble for having TikTok. So TikTok came back and he said this was because he wanted

people to be talking about his inauguration. He said that he was bringing it back for that reason particularly. And then I guess he signed an executive order following his inauguration. to extend the period of time before the law would prohibit TikTok. I'm getting two numbers. I'm seeing 75, and I'm seeing 90-day ban. 75-day ban was on C-SPAN's TikTok, which they do have a TikTok, and the 90-day ban was a little bit more prevalent. I'm not really sure which one's correct,

so you can help me figure that out. And all that I know about why he's doing this is that he wants America to be in some sort of like 50-50 partnership with bite dance. He said in a video that he thinks the app is worthless without U.S. ownership. I'm not sure if he meant worthless to America or worthless to China, but either way he was talking about it in a way that suggested to me that he thinks the CEO will sign this deal and that America will own part of TikTok. As a result, people are being literally insane.

And all I have from my after is just incredibly chronically online reactions to this. the first one is the least chronically online in my opinion, which is just people who are not conservative, obviously being nervous about what looks like it's, what seems to be shaping up, which is Trump having a really strong relationship with CEOs and all of big tech. And they're seeming to be this shift now that he's in office. I know that Mark Zuckerberg and said that Facebook is going to get rid of their fact checkers in favor of community notes. and so there's this like anti-fact checking thing happening here which actually I think is a good thing but I can understand why people would be afraid of that and they've also made statements about changing their DEI policies they donated money to Trump's inauguration and people are basically taking all that information and saying well now meta is conservative now meta and Trump are like best friends so as a result of that people are the first thing that people have been saying is like I blocked Facebook and I blocked meta on 10 TikTok and my algorithm went back to normal. So like the accounts that are meta and Facebook, I don't know if they, I didn't look that

they have accounts on TikTok, but they said they blocked them and they were back to getting their normal like left-leaning content. And I will say that I have noticed a major shift in the algorithm on my end. It's just much more conservative. But it seems to be, I mean, I don't want to say it's organic and be stupid, but like what I'm seeing is not more conservative content. I'm seeing the comment sections of places changing. So where it used to be like a video that was pro-Trump would have a bunch of anti-Trump comments,

I'm seeing videos that are anti-Trump having a lot of pro-Trump comments and a lot of pro-Trump videos having pro-Trump comments. Like it just seems to be a little bit more of a conservative spin in the comment section, which I don't know if that's organic or if that's orchestrated. I don't know if that's robots. I don't know if that's real. But there is definitely a changing tide there. And people are thinking that if they're able to block Facebook. and meta that that's changing the conservativeness of the comments.

I just find that hard to believe. Another thing that people, that was really bad, and I saw this also firsthand, was people were complaining celebrities and people I know alike, complaining on their Instagrams that they were following J.D. Vance and Trump, and they, quote, never followed them. But the problem is that they were actually just following the POTUS and the VP Instagrams, and they changed to J.D. Vance and Trump. So they were following Kamala Harris and Biden

And then the Instagram's changed Obviously when new people took office And they were freaking out being like Meta made me follow Trump in Vance And I've never followed them before I'm like What? No, no no These are Instagram accounts that are going to change

ownership every four years Or eight years depending on terms But yeah that was a fun thing to watch and fold But people pretty much clocked that quickly as well I saw a lot of the complaints And then about a day later I saw people being like you guys are being really stupid because this is,

this is what happened, and you guys are being done. The Revolution was also a very chronically online thing to watch. I think anybody who's writing deny, depose, what is it, deny, defend, depose on dollar bill. You're being weird. They're writing it on their shoes and stuff. It's very middle school. And then I just have some TikTok comments that I want to read that made me

nervous. This is actually not. a comment this is a full TikTok video i'm just going to quote it for you and it says i literally have such an ick from TikTok in the government pulling this PR stunt last night causing a mass panic making everyone confused on what was going to happen making the app go dark a day before the ban was even supposed to take effect only to come back right on with the same BS statement from tick talk thanking trump so he gets to look like a hero the day before the inauguration it's so manipulative it's so obvious meta is definitely going to announce they're buying TikTok and ruin it anyway

I hope people see this through. The part that makes me laugh the most, I mean, there's a lot of parts about that that I'm like, okay, chill out. But the part that makes me laugh the most is the quote, causing mass panic. People were mass panicking. I certainly wasn't.

But that's a crazy way to describe an app being taken off the app store. And if people felt that way, I think they clearly have some sort of addiction and problem. Another comment I saw was, bruh, I don't want another countdown. I want TikTok back permanently. can't do this again. You can't do this again. You can't lose TikTok and go waste time on some other

app. Like I don't understand that. Some girl commented influencers colon, please, please, please make videos making fun of the inauguration. And then all of the comments, replied comments to that are like deny, defend, depose revolution, hashtag cute winter boots, as you may expect. And then a lot of comments just about Trump being a narcissist. That's the word they want to throw around. And I think the conversation is actually an interesting one to have. Like, is this a PR stunt? Is this real? But to throw around TikTok-ified words like narcissist is like so unhelpful to the conversation.

I can't even stand it. Yeah, people are basically losing their minds. But there is a generally, weirdly post-election of more conservative bent on these apps. And it is very possible it is because meta is more, is like aligning with Trump and is pushing more conservative content. That is very possible. But it's also possible that people just feel more comfortable, like expressing how they feel about something in the wake of such a drastic win. Because he won in a drastic way. And I think people saw that and are a little bit more like, oh, wait, other people think this.

And I'm fine. I think that's also a possible reason for this. Maybe people are kind of changing the way they think. I don't know. For those of you who are just tuning in, we are talking about the TikTok ban on the social mediators on Radio Free Hillsdale, 1-1.1.7 FM. And I'm Garrett. And Garrett's going to take us away and tell me what I got wrong and maybe what I got right. Yeah.

So the actual circumstances surrounding this situation are not all that complicated. There was Biden signed an executive order essentially for an investigation into TikTok as an app. And the Supreme Court ruled not too long ago that it was not a violation of American free speech for them to ban the app because China is a national security risk. to the United States. This is theoretical. There hasn't been a lot of proven antagonism on China's part through TikTok, but the opportunity is certainly there. China is a communist regime, and if bite dance is based in China, it is entirely conceivable that the Chinese government could pressure bite dance into giving them information that they want

to do, whatever it is that they want to do. It's a completely reasonable to think it could happen, and yeah, it's a legitimate risk but nothing well-founded, yeah, has happened yet. So Biden issues this order. He gives them a certain amount,

you know, a deadline by which to sell the app, and they have to sell it to somebody that is not, preferably an American, right, but basically to a non-communist

regime. And they weren't able to do it, right? So we reached the day of the ban, January 19th, which I don't know how that date was determined, but it just so happened

that it was really close to the inauguration. and ultimately it was 75-day extension basically on the ban so there's 75 more days between now and when TikTok will be banned from the American market unless someone buys it and literally all that was for is so that Trump has time to like get in office and talk to his people about his security advisors and to review how much of a risk it is I think he partially why he didn't go through with the ban immediately is because and he said this himself you know he is I think more aware now that

that 170 million people use this, and it would be a really big deal if it just went goodbye overnight. So he's trying to figure out, like, how can we have a happy medium? How can we keep it without having the security risk be a problem? And so all these different really rich people have stepped forward and say, like, have expressed interest in buying it.

Mr. Beast among them, funny enough? I did see that. Yes, he did actually put out a bid that he was ready to perhaps fork over the money. Does he have enough money to buy TikTok? Well, he had a team of investors that he was going to partner with. But the most legitimate offer financially, I think, came from Kevin O'Leary, who is a shark tank guy. He's the bald guy. He offered $20 billion, which is a lot of money. I did not know that was happening. So he offered a huge sum. And then Elon Musk, basically Trump has said, hey, do you want to buy it? And Elon Musk has said nothing.

But, yeah, Trump basically has said that he would be okay with Elon Musk buying it. They have to get all kinds of permits to run a company like this. in the United States. And Trump is basically the one that gets to decide who gets one and who doesn't. So they do need his consent in some ways. Let's see, what else? You asked about meta buying it. There's no evidence that they bought it yet.

Cool. Yeah. They haven't bought it. The CEO of ByteDance has basically said, like, no, we haven't sold to anybody yet. We're still trying to, like, I think the word he used for most of the offers that have been put forward now is that they were not even legit. Oh, really? Yes. That's so different than what I'm getting, though, because that message that we got when

TikTok came back said, thank you President Trump. Like, it made it seem like they wanted to work with him, no? I mean, yeah. So the way that Trump is putting forward to the CEO of Biden's because they met to work with them, which what I gather is that the CEO doesn't like this. He doesn't really want to do this. Is that Trump is saying, sell it to somebody in America, and that person, whoever they sell it to in order to get the permits that they need to run this company

will have to essentially enter and he hasn't explained exactly what he means by this but a 50-50 partnership with the United States government in the company in in in TikTok and what that means it's actually kind of unclear but so what that means that China has no ownership yes oh see that's so weird because it they want no ownership Chinese ownership in TikTok Oh. Yeah. I definitely was feeling like the vibe was 50% China, 50% US working in tandem. No, it's 50% a private American investor. They want them to sell it entirely? Yes, which is a very expensive venture. Wait, this seems so much less likely to me right now, now that I'm hearing this, I feel like these are important pieces of information I was missing, which happens every episode. Indeed, indeed it does. So, yeah, I had a deny here about the revolution thing at all.

Why are people trying to start a revolution? That's so fascinating. In terms of whether it's succeeding or not, the actual news has not spoken of any revolution. So clearly it's not working because usually when a revolution happens, the news talks about it a lot. So that's a little bit confusing to me. I'm confused by it too. Are we ready to give social media a grade? I think so.

Yeah, I am too, I guess. Three, two, one, B. Okay. Yeah, I don't know. It doesn't, they don't, America doesn't. it's still a security risk for any Chinese company to own any part of TikTok. And that's like the, that's the operative issue. Social media just doesn't care about, I guess I would say from a firsthand account,

the TikTok ban, obviously social media did a good job because I was there and I watched it happen. In terms of the logistics and the reasoning, I don't think even social media cares too much about why. I think they are upset and they want to be able to pin it on something a little bit more dystopian than maybe is true. Yeah, the whole like now the algorithm is going to be more conservative because their buddies is. Well, and the First Amendment is out the door. Super perplexing. Because the Supreme Court, which is by no means like 100% conservative, you know, even though it's not supposed to be political. But everybody knows it is.

still ruled that this wasn't a violation of free speech. Right. Okay. And I feel like they know probably better than the average college student. I'm willing to believe that. Okay, well, I hope we... But why cute little boots? Cute winter boots.

Cute winter boots. No, I think it's just vague enough as a hashtag that people can... Like... You could use it without being part of the revolution. Yes, it's like... It's supposed to be discreet enough that the algorithm... them can't pick up what's happening, but that the average person could look at it and be like, oh, I've seen this on revolution videos before. So this might be one of the first revolutions ever where people could be a part of it by accident.

Like very much by accident. Like they're just trying to show off their outfit. They could, but I feel like people are also sifting through. Like if you really are just showing cute winter boots, you can move past it until you see someone being like, do you like my cute winter boots? And then they hold up like a sign that says deny, defend, depose. Mm-hmm. Confusing. Are you swayed? Are you going to join? Oh, I don't know. I'm going to join. You'll just have to check my social media page and find out.

Your many social media pages. You run. My many social media pages, yes. Ridiculous. Well, thank you so much to everybody who tune into the social mediaers this week on Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM. I'm Jillian Parks. And I'm Garrett Goldsby. And we'll talk to you next week.