WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Social Mediators: Is TikTok Getting Banned?

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

This week we discuss the bill that passed through the House concerning TikTok's presence in American culture and politics. Tune in to hear social media theories about the real reason the bill is being passed, Jillian's soap box about "old people" communicating with the young, and Garrett to, as always, come in and quiet everybody down a little bit. 

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 Gouldsby. This is so weird. And Garrett and I are trying out a new platform for today's podcasting because things are crazy when I'm in D.C. But what's even crazier is what's going on in D.C.

That has nothing to do with me. That has everything to do with the government. Yes. They're banning TikTok. No. Well, I'll talk a little bit about that. You will too. We'll both talk a little bit about that.

A lot of bit about it. Hopefully you have more information than I do because I just have a lot of people complaining. So is this something that makes you personally sad? Yes. I like TikTok. And my job as the social mediator, social media is a lot easier because of TikTok. because all the like content is condensed in one place usually. And so TikTok is one of my major places that I get info for these episodes.

So if TikTok really does get banned, that's going to make the show sad. Much harder. We're actually going to have to do work. I'll probably have to, I don't know, get more active on Twitter. Instagram will have to pull its weight, but I don't know how that's going to work. Gosh, Instagram is always kind of a dud, unfortunately. I'm worried about this, but not as worried as some people on the internet. I'll tell you that.

I will say that in our conversations, just our brief conversations out here on WIP, when they ask people like, who has TikTok? I am the only one in all of Hillsdale in D.C. who has TikTok. Interesting. Or at least who's willing to admit it. There might be people who have it that are just like embarrassed that they have it. Yes, people that like, oh, I'm so embarrassed to enjoy an app that 170 million people enjoy.

Like, I don't know why that would be like an embarrassing thing. All my friends, all my friends have TikTok and we send them to each other. So wamp, wom. Anyway, I just thought that was a funny moment where I was like, well, I guess that's just me. But I'm the normal one here, not you guys. Can I tell you about my only exposure to TikTok? Yes, definitely. So during the pandemic, when my whole family was in one place, and for those of you that don't know,

I have five brothers and sisters. So there's a bunch of us. What we would do once a week is that we would have a time where all of us got together and we shared just a ridiculous video that we found over the course of the week. It was just something to do. It could be anything. And some of them were short. Some of them were very long.

But there was one particular night where a brother of mine shared about two hours worth of TikTok clips and had us all just rolling on the ground laughing. They were all ridiculous. They were all very stupid, and it was very fun. And it just lightened the pandemic mood a little bit. See, TikTok brings people together. That's right. I have nothing but fun memories associated with my one memory of TikTok.

Perfect. Definitely not the norm, considering a lot of people are like wasting their days away, scrolling for hours and hours. But let's get into what those kinds of people are saying about this ban or whatever. Wonderful. First thing that I will say is that TikTok is pretty clear and pretty, adamant about the fact that this is not like a full out ban at least not yet and that there are some things that have to happen before that would happen um when i first heard about this of course the first

videos that came up were on tic-tok and they were people being like the united states is banning ticot and that was like the end of it and we i was like that can't be true because this show and being alive have made me all the more skeptical of news that comes to me through social media and all news in general actually. So I was like, that can't be true, but more stuff will come up about this. And boy, oh, boy, was I right? Because I had like, oh, probably a dozen videos a day of people like weighing in on what they thought about the whole TikTok ban.

What I know is that it passed in the house and the house passed it very quickly, which people are really frustrated about, which I'll talk about in a little bit, and that it's now been moved to the Senate and the general vibe that people put forth about it going to the Senate is that, well, now it's a done deal because the Senate is full of even older, even more curmudgeonly men and women who hate children and hate fun and hate joy of my generation. And so, of course, they're going to ban TikTok. That is the, that's not my words. Those are the words of social media. And apparently President Biden has said multiple times that he will pass the ban if it gets to his desk. So most people aren't worried about a potential or banking on a potential veto from

Joe Biden. The content of this bill, the only thing I know, things I know, I know a couple things. First is that it's under the umbrella of this being a threat to American security and privacy. something about the Chinese government being able to mine data from American citizens. And everybody's worried about that. And everyone's upset about that. And its parent company, TikTok's parent company, Bite Dance, is being basically coerced by this bill to either divest from the, I guess from the, maybe the Chinese Communist Party, maybe the government in general. I'm not really sure how they would divest or what they're divesting from. It's not really important on TikTok, but divest or be banned in the United States.

There's apparently also a counter bill from ByteDance to America called Project Texas. I don't know if you've heard about this or know what that is. But apparently it's a bill that ByteDance put forward that was like, you can keep all of the data in, on American soil if that makes you feel better. And apparently, like, nothing's been done about Project Texas because I don't know why. But people are like, this is a big conspiracy and they just don't want. Okay, I'll actually just very quickly get into what people think this is. Everyone's pretty much unilateral, not unilaterally, univocally, yes, univocally agreed

that this is the United States government pulling a totalitarian, free speech ban because they're afraid of the people of America banning together with people of other countries to create real change. And people say that this is happening because the government is upset. Like the words they use are very juvenile, which makes me laugh. But like the government is upset that so many people in America rallied behind the Palestinian cause. And they think that TikTok is the reason for that and that they don't want that to happen again because it gives the American people too much power and that's why they're doing this. There are some really super concerning comments on all of these videos that are basically people being like, this is my life. If you delete TikTok,

I don't know what I'm going to do. TikTok is my therapy. Weird stuff like that. We're like, oh, so maybe definitely TikTok should be banned. Like if anything, nothing I've seen. on social media has made me believe that banning TikTok would be a bad thing yet. I don't want it to be banned because I like using it, but I can go use something else and I'll, or maybe I'll like read more books or something. Like I just will find a different way to use my time. Get outside. Exactly. Like it's actually, like, there are just some really stupid people weighing in here. Like one person commented on one of these videos like, why don't we get to vote on this? Oh. I had to like take a break after I saw that.

Because I was like, really, this is the kind of people that are rallying together and they're afraid of right now? I don't know. It bothers me. There are other comments that are like, I've learned so much in the four years that I've been on this app. Like, I'm so afraid of it leaving. Like, I'll never learn anything again. I'm like, oh, well. Wait, as like an educational device, they've learned things?

Yes. This has been like the major source of their learning. Because it's the major source of their time. But it's like, go ahead. I was going to say if the show tells you anything, it's that the learning that one does through social media is, well, maybe not the most accurate in the world. Agreed.

And the things that I've learned from TikTok have been like, how to make a cassidia in the toaster. Like, that's the kind of stuff. That's the kind of stuff I learned. I don't know if I could make a cassidia in the toaster without some video instruction. I could show you some time if you wanted. It's really,

easy and it was great. And I eat it like an upright toaster where the toast shoots out the top. Yes. It's awesome. It's fantastic. I'll show you some time. It's pretty epic. But those are the kinds of things that I've learned.

Or here's the big thing I learn, learn in quotes from TikTok is like what I want to buy with my money. Like when I get money, what do I want to buy? And it's not typically in pursuit of like actually being able to like get something out of the things that I'm buying. But like it's typically in pursuit of some sort of like. I don't know, ease that I didn't have before or like something that's like aesthetically pleasing that I just like to look at or clothes like outfit ideas. That's a thing. Like it's all very superficial the things that I'm learning and I could learn without them. I do like it. And I'm not going to sit here and be like, I'm not on the side of people that are all like, the Chinese Communist Party is mining our

data because like, I don't know, America's also mining our data from what I can tell. And like, There's tons of American companies that are probably doing weird stuff with, like, I don't know, American data. I don't, I just, I'm not finding it completely compelling yet. Maybe you'll be able to like, I feel like, that's exactly the side I'm on, but old people really get mad at me when I say stuff like that. But then I just remember in my head that they're old and we get over it. So have you been attacked by an old person recently because of this? I'm not going to use names. Oh, oh, so perhaps this has happened.

I'm not going to use names, but there are like a couple different over the years, not like in recent. I'm saying like over all my years at Hillsdale, while this has been a conversation about like, do not sell your data to this company. There's just people who want to weigh in and say things that I'm like, that's just not productive and not compelling. Like if you're going to compel me, don't make me feel stupid. You know what I mean? Like don't try to convert young people by saying what they like is stupid. Like that's not going to do anything. and all the parents, maybe people I would consider old out there who are listening to this and are like horribly offended by it.

I'm sorry. But like if you really are worried about the safety of your kids and your teens and like that is why you are compelled to get rid of this app, like approach them with a little bit more empathy, understanding that like this is an important, even if important is not the degree of important that you think is important, this is like a big part of their life. and like it's been a big part of their life, at least since 2020. And so it is better to operate with a little bit more like, this is important to a lot of people, and you probably shouldn't talk about it so flippantly. Not that everybody wants my advice, but that's my take on it. Those are the things that I know about the TikTok deal. Garrett, come in and give me the details I'm missing or maybe correct the stuff I was saying earlier.

For everybody who's just checking in right now, this is the social mediators on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Gillian Parks. And I'm Garrett Goulsby. And we are talking about the TikTok quote unquote ban slash bill slash all the drama surrounding TikTok potentially disappearing from our phones in, I don't know, like eight months or something. So the good news is the chance that it'll ever disappear from your phone is pretty much zero. Actually, it's, yeah, I mean, it is bordering on zero. You can't say it's exactly zero. But the chances that you will not be able to access TikTok are extremely low.

Seriously? Yes. So we'll get into why that is the. case in just a second. It has a lot to do with the nature of the ban and what the bill actually says. So there's 170 million Americans that use TikTok. Like you said, it's owned by a Chinese company called Bite Dance, but it's a global company. They've got thousands and thousands of employees all over the world, including American employees. So it's a huge company. And the reason why Congress started in the beginning started to get suspicious of TikTok is because it's based in in China,

And China is controlled by a government that essentially has control over the businesses that are within its borders. So let's just say that, for example, I'm not saying this definitely has or has not happened, but let's say that TikTok gets a hold of some data that the Chinese government wants. The government essentially can order them to hand it over. So bite dance is a private company. They don't, they're not just, they're not working for the government. they're not passing data to the government automatically. But the fear that a lot of people have is that because it's in China, the government could simply take control of the data because they don't have a choice.

So that's the initial fear. Now, is this fear founded? Is there any reason to believe that that's the case? The most egregious instance of something like this happening that really, really worries people is a while back there were some Forbes journalists, there are three of them, that were writing negative articles about the company. I'm not exactly sure what the nature of these articles were, but they weren't painting TikTok in a positive light.

And TikTok actually used their algorithm to track the locations of these journalists and basically did what amounts to espionage on their lives. So that concerned a lot of people. Yeah, concerned a lot of people. And now that's a pretty, while that's scary, it's still a pretty minor incident. it's not like they hired a hit squad

and had those guys killed or anything like that. But I think the fear from the government's point of view is that that kind of thing will start happening on a much greater scale if the Chinese government has reason to cause those things to happen. The other thing is that the algorithm that TikTok uses can start to influence American politics, elections and things like that

because the algorithm gets to determine what people see, right? So should the government want to step in, they could. Again, this is all theoretical. We don't actually know whether the Chinese government would do this and whether Byte Dance would comply if they decided to. But people are afraid that the government could step in and start saying, we want you to bend the algorithm towards this kind of information on your platform. And that, in turn, could interfere with all kinds of things in American daily life.

So that is the main fear behind why this ban is taking place. Let's talk about the ban itself because it sounds like there's a lot of fear that people are going to lose TikTok access to TikTok completely. The chances of that are super, super low. So the ban is going to mainly affect government employees. In fact, that is who it is targeted towards. So there's about 4 million devices under the new bill. There's about 4 million government issued devices that will not be able to access TikTok. most government employees won't be able to access TikTok and already can't because of these measures,

except for people that are in security research, things like that. There are also some states that have already gone through with full bans on government devices, Texas, Alabama, I think Georgia, and maybe a few more, Virginia. And all that pertains to just government-owned devices. So if somebody works for the government and they have a laptop issue to them by their job, They can't access TikTok via that. Now, the big problem that I think anybody trying to enforce a true ban on TikTok would come up against is that it could still be accessed through a web browser. So all that a ban, a full ban, even if it was banned for the American people, all that could really do is pull it out of the app store.

So Apple and Google would have to pull the product off. But there's a workaround to everything, right? you could still just get on the internet, search up TikTok, log into your account. And it wouldn't be, you know, it's the internet connection, so it's a little bit clunkier and its usage, but you could still use it. So people that are getting up in arms about the thought of never having TikTok again, chances of that are pretty low. And also, if theoretically the government were to take a more, shall we say, aggressive approach

to banning TikTok and tried to get rid of all the avenues of access, it would take a really long time to implement that. And of course, like everything, people always find workarounds. So the deal, what the bill says is that BightDance has to, like you said, divest the company to somewhere

other than China. Basically, they have to sell TikTok to some other investor, some other company that is not Chinese based. And because TikTok is so big, that gives you a pretty limited number of options. You're looking at meta, Google, Amazon, you know, maybe Apple, a couple of other

a couple other companies because not a lot of people can afford how much TikTok would cost. And they gave them six months. Congress gave them six months to sell the company, which for such a big thing, not a very long time. There's lots of legal complications that would go into selling the company. And so ByteDance responded with their own bill. I actually just as we were sitting here looked up Project Texas and was reading about it. Basically all that that project is, and it's already underway, is that TikTok has spent literally billions of dollars creating data infrastructure in the United States so that American data can be housed on American soil

and controlled by American oversight committees, basically, so that the Chinese government doesn't have access to it and isn't, you know, it's not immediately proximal to them. So this fear that the Chinese government could be using that data is sort of mitigated by that. That's what TikTok claims it does. How effective it is it actually doing that. It's hard to say. Data is a really tricky thing because once it's out there, it's out there. And anybody that's clever enough can find it. So it makes it kind of a tricky issue. There are actually a couple of people that are looking to buy TikTok that are in the running for possibly helping this bill happen. The most notable one is the former Treasury Secretary. His name is Stephen Nukin or something like that. I don't remember how to do. say his last name, but used to be the Treasury Secretary, and he's getting together a bunch of investors to try to purchase TikTok. And a lot of this is in response to the bill to try to make it

feasible for BightDance to sell the company. But they obviously don't really want to sell, and I think from their perspective, it's not really needed because the reality is it's hard to tell whether there's evidence against TikTok for misuse of data yet because anybody that would know about it, anybody that would know any times that TikTok has crossed the line and maybe used data inappropriately, they're top security officials and their lips are sealed and they're not talking about it. So information on that is not readily available. Do you have any questions? Yes. I was actually just thinking of a question and then it left my brain because I was thinking, wow, Garrett's really good at this. That is literally all I was thinking.

Oh, is there, do you have reason to believe that the Senate is going to pass this as well? Or like, do you think this bill is going to be passed through the Senate and through Biden? Or do you think, like, it won't? So actually what I've seen is that people don't believe it's going to pass the Senate very easily. It probably still will pass. Like you said, it's a bunch of older people. Most of them are a Republican majority. And so it probably will pass. But the thing that's kind of confusing about the political side of this is that everybody keeps switching sides on like who agrees that TikTok should be banned or not.

Joe Biden during Donald Trump's presidency, staunchly defended TikTok and was super anti-Tick-Tac ban because Trump tried to get TikTok banned in 2020. I remember that. Yes. And now Donald Trump is pro-Tick-Tac and is opposing them. Everybody's just switching sides as they see fit, willy-nilly. but the groups that this is bringing together are very strange. For example, Marco Rubio and Nancy Pelosi agree that TikTok should be banned. I don't know that they've ever agreed on anything before.

So that's pretty big. Wow. That is, I have, well, I guess the main takeaway for me is like it's not all doom and gloom, even though social media would have you believe that. And therefore, I feel pretty confident and ready to give social media a grade. Are you ready, Garrett? I think so. Okay, three, two, one. F.

D. F, okay. Yeah. I just think it sucks. Mostly because it doesn't really sound like it's targeting American citizens as much as people think it is. So all the conspiracy theories about it being a freedom of speech thing and wanting to like, I don't know, not like people rally in support of things. It just doesn't seem, I don't know, there is some truth to it with algorithmic stuff. But that's even like, that's an organic fear, I feel like. So yeah. This sounds like social media sucks once again.

This is such a regular occurrence. We can't even be confused at this point. All right. Well, thanks so much for tuning in, everybody. This is social mediators on Radio Free Hillsdale. I'm Julian Parks. And I'm Garrett. We'll speak.

We'll talk to you next week.