Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer at iHeart Podcasts and How the Tech are You? So? On Fridays, I typically will do a news roundup of the tech news that happened over the previous week, and today we're going to do something a little different. We're going to cover one story in particular that really requires a lot more time and attention than what I would normally give, so we're gonna really dive into it. Also, we will continue the story of rooster Teeth. I do have at least two more parts for that. I thought it was just going to be a two parter, but man covering what happened over the last few years requires a lot more care and effort as well. So let's get to today's topic, which of course, is the United States ban on TikTok, which isn't a sure thing yet. I want to be sure to say that right up front, but the US House of Representatives passed a bill this week that ultimately could lead to a ban on TikTok if the bill ends up being passed into law and there are a couple of steps that have to happen before that becomes reality. But there's a ton of stuff going on here, including things that have nothing to do with tech, but everything that happens with money and politics. This is why you can't separate tech out from those things. I know there are a lot of people who complain about news stories where they're like, just cover the tech, don't talk about politics. That's not the way the world works. The world doesn't work with everything being in these separate silos that have no connection with each other. Politics and tech shape each other. Now, I would say that this particular story gets really gross because, in my opinion, the entirety of this focus on TikTok is misguided. I'm not saying that TikTok is good, I'm not saying it's bad, but I am saying that this whole thing misses the point. In my opinion, I also think it really exposes a ton of problems with America's political system. But these aren't things that I think anyone finds surprising. I think everyone, at least on some level, is aware that America's political system has issues. But we're going to get to all that first. What is this bill and how did we get here? Well, the bill is h R. Seven five two one. It's also known as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, And to quote the text of the bill directly, it is quote to protect the national security of the United States from I'm the threat posed by foreign adversary controlled applications such as TikTok and any successor application or service, and any other application or service developed or provided by Byteedance Limited or any entity under the control of byte Edance Limited end quote. So it's clear that this bill specifically targets TikTok's parent company, Byteedance Limited, not just any Chinese owned parent company or foreign owned company. However, the text of the actual bill does get far more general, and ultimately it does cover quote foreign adversary controlled applications end quote. So it's not just for TikTok, but it uses TikTok as sort of the primary example the paradigm, if you will. And foreign adversary in this context doesn't just mean a country that is on particularly unfriendly terms with the good old US of A. It's not just countries we've got beef with. It covers any entity, person, organization, company, et cetera that resides within the borders of such a country. So, while the phrase foreign adversary seems to suggest like a nation or state controlled entity, it's actually more broad than that. It's really any person or company that exists in such a country that then would be identified in the context of this bill as a foreign adversary. So essentially, the bill would require any APP that ultimately belongs to an entity that resides or exists within a country that had been identified as a foreign adversary to the United States. And there's a whole code that explains how that designation happens. Well, if this bill is enacted into law, then any such app currently available within the United States would have one hundred and eighty days before a ban is imposed by the US government. To avoid the ban, the foreign adversary can divest itself of the APP, that is, sell the APP or some version part of the APP to some other entity that is not a foreign adversary to the United States. Also, in the future, should the US President identify a new country as a foreign adversary, let's just say that for some reason the President says that I don't know France is a foreign adversary. At that point, then apps that originated out of France would have one hundred and eighty days to comply with this law before a ban would fall upon them like a bag of hammers. So how do you ban an app? How does that work? Well, this bill says the US would go after essentially the distribution infrastructure for apps, like the app stores. In other words, Section A of this bill states that quote it shall be unlawful for any entity to distribute, maintain, or update, or enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of a foreign adversary controlled application end quote, and then the section goes on. But essentially this bill would target stuff like the iOS app Store or the Android App Store. It also includes internet hosting services that would allow for the updating and maintenance of those apps. So not only would the app disappear from app stores within the United States, the apps would essentially lose all functionality because what the US is saying is you can't allow traffic to go to these apps. At the very least, you wouldn't be able to update the apps anymore within the United States, and presumably that would mean that you wouldn't get notifications you wouldn't be able to access new material, et cetera. Now, if these companies failed to comply with the law, they face a fine of five five thousand dollars per US user of that app. So for TikTok, that's more than one hundred and fifty million American users. So by my math, that's like seven hundred and fifty billion dollars in fines, which means that obviously these companies that are largely US based, would end all support for TikTok rather than face a nearly one trillion dollar fine. The bill also calls for the foreign adversary controlled app to provide user data upon request so that the user would be able to port their information to some alternative application. Now I'm not entirely certain how that could be achieved in a reasonable way. I suspect that this from a technical perspective, is largely difficult, at the very least possibly impossible to achieve so that you could port your TikTok profile well to something else. It doesn't just work that way. It's not apples to apples. To me, this seems like a pretty feeble attempt to playcate TikTok users who would otherwise be really upset to lose the content that they had created and consumed on an app like TikTok. So the implication seems to be, don't worry, We've put in a legal requirement that TikTok would have to give you all your stuff so that you can head on over to Instagram reels and do it all over there, or something like that. If the foreign adversary fails to comply with this part of the law, then they would be fined five hundred dollars per active user in the US, which is not nearly as hefty a hit obviously, but also I'm not sure how the US would ever collect on that, because again, if it's a foreign adversary controlled app, I don't know that there's the leverage to force the foreign adversary to pay up the fine. You could definitely go off against the US infrastructure that the government would be able to do, at least initially. I'm sure it would be immediately challenged in court, but this bill would at least allow for that approach. I don't know how you would do it for a foreign adversary, Like you could point to the company and say you owe us X amount of money, and the company says, okay, but we're over here, then you're over there, so I don't know. The bill goes on to single out TikTok and byte Dance again, but also states that the President can send a report to Congress identifying other apps that meet certain criteria, including specific threats to US national security, as well as what aspects of the app would need to be divested in order to avoid a ban. So if the President says, hey, this other app also I want to put under this same list of restrictions, you would have to have the President send that message to Congress and say specifically how this app represents a threat to national security. You can't just have a blank it approach. Presumably after a public report and the detailed account to Congress, the designation would then be acknowledged and the clock would begin to tick for that app. Now there's a bit more to the bill, including what measures a party can take to challenge the bill, but I think that's enough to have a conversation about this. By the way, the bill is just thirteen pages long, and by thirteen pages long, I mean like you've got to remember bills have lots of indented segments. So it's not even a full page of material. It's a pretty easy read. By the way, there's hardly any jargon in it. It isn't like one of those where you're like, whereas and so forth and a fourthwith and et cetera, et cetera. It doesn't come across like that. So I urge all of y'all to check it out if you prefer to have firsthand knowledge of a text as opposed to just relying on news articles and opinion pieces, some of which I suspect the writers never read the bill in the first place. Again, that's Hr. Five two one, and yeah, it's a quick read. It's not a fun read, but it is quick, So check it out now. For TikTok specifically, this bill essentially says either Byte Dance sells TikTok to some other entity, an entity that does not reside or exist inside an adversarial country, or we will bring down the power of the US government on the distribution infrastructure for the app to make sure that no one in the US can get it or use it. That's a pretty massive ultimatum, you know, divest TikTok or the TikTok will face a national band. So how did we get here? Now that question is actually super complex because there are a lot of different reasons why various political leaders have taken aim at TikTok in particular. Now, chief among them is that byte Dance is a Chinese company, and the Chinese government has been known to get very involved with Chinese enterprises. It's common in China for large companies to reserve a spot at the highest levels of company oversight and governance for a representative of the Chinese Communist Party. So there's this perception that the Chinese Communist Party has literally a seat at the table of all these massive companies in China. Famously, China enacted a national intelligence law in twenty seventeen that compels Chinese citizens and organizations to quote support national intelligence work end quote, and that the government can actually demand cooperation that they do so. That's covered under articles seven and fourteen of that twenty seventeen law. So one interpretation of this law is that the Chinese government could go to byte Dance and demand that the companies share all the data it has through an app like TikTok, and byte Dance would be required by Chinese law to do so. They would have have to hand that data over to the Chinese Communist Party. Now, if that information included sensitive data that could compromise the national security of the United States, that's a problem. If in fact, this would serve as a type of espionage, that's a huge issue. But that's a big if. And here's the thing. If the possibility exists, unfortunately, that's enough. It's kind of like trying to undermine democracy. You don't actually have to compromise voting machines to undermine democracy. All you have to do is prove that it's possible to compromise a voting machine. If you prove it's possible, well then you insert doubt into the minds of citizens. Because if it's possible to manipulate votes, well, then you can never be sure that the votes that came out actually reflect the will of the people, right, you can't be sure that the results of any election are legitimate, And by undermining the confidence people have in the process, you undermine democracy itself. Democracy with a big d the doubt is all that's needed. So, if it's possible the Chinese Communist Party could force Byteedance to hand over gobs of data belonging to American citizens. That's all that's needed to serve as a threat, even if the actual scenario never happens. So you could argue, well, technically, yeah, it's possible, but it hasn't happened, and everyone at Might Dance has expressed that this would never happen. That's not good enough, at least not in the eyes of the leaders who are concerned about this. Okay, I've been ranting for a bit, but we've got a ton more to get through about this issue, So let's take a quick break to thank our sponsors. Okay. So I was talking earlier about how the perception of a threat is the same thing as a threat in the eyes of politics, like it doesn't matter if the threat is real or not, which is infuriating, but it's also unfortunately true. TikTok and Byte Dance representatives have said numerous times that China's Communist Party has never interfered, has never been able to access this information, and that in fact, TikTok has taken steps to make sure to prevent that eventuality. So, for example, TikTok moved all US citizen data to servers within the United States that would not be accessible by Chinese Communist Party representatives. These servers belonged to the US company Oracle, so the company that actually is overseeing the servers is an American company that does not have ties to byte Dance. This was all part of Project Texas. As TikTok explains, that project has five pillars that encompass independent governance, data protection and access control, software assurance, content assurance, and monitoring and compliance. TikTok says, it quote spent the last two years developing a framework through discussions with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, and we've spent roughly one point five billion dollars to date on implementation end quote. So what TikTok is saying is, hey, we've been working in good faith with the US government for years now to ensure that this data remains safe and secure and within the boundaries and borders of the United States. Part of those efforts included the formation of a subsidiary called TikTok Us Data Security, which is quote an entirely independent business entity tasked with managing all business functions that require access to user data identified by the US god government as needing additional protection and safeguarding the systems that deliver content on the app in the US to ensure that it is free from foreign manipulation end quote. Now there's a ton more to say about TikTok's efforts to avoid the situation that would fall on the company if this bill were to get passed into law, but I urge you to check out TikTok's post on the matter. You can find it at USDs dot TikTok dot com slash USDs dash about. That's a lot, but that's where you can read up on TikTok's policies here. Now, I will also add there have been reports, whether you know, legitimate or not, people in China allegedly accessing TikTok data, not always US citizen data, but that in fact Byteedance employees have been able to access user information through TikTok. So there are a lot of conflicting reports about whether or not TikTok's infrastructure is sort of air gapped from China or not, and their conflicting reports about whether ByteDance has access to the information. That uncertainty has further fueled the political scenario that we're in today. Now, why did Project Texas happen? In the first place. Well, it became a necessity because back in twenty twenty, the then US President Donald Trump had identified TikTok as a threat to national security. Now, in many ways, this was really a part of a larger trade conflict that the United States had with China. At that time, Trump and China had engaged in sort of a trade war with one another, and some argued that Trump's reasoning was based more on a desire to find leverage against China and not so much about responding to a perceived threat to national security. So some were saying that the national security message was really just kind of a front and that really this was more of the trade situation. Others felt that this was just the latest in a very long line of xenophobic positions that various US leaders have taken over the years, and this is not related to any specific party. This has happened over and over with leaders across all different political ideologies. That despite the fact that America is made up of a people who mostly come from other places, apart from Native Americans who were here before everybody else, there's still a really healthy distrust among some circles of citizens of anyone who comes from anywhere other than the United States. In order to really see this in action like highlighted to an absurd degree, just watch footage of any wrestling promotion from the nineteen seventies to the early two thousands in which the foreigner gimmick was used to as establish a heel or a bad guy. You would get people channing USA, USA, USA. It's the jingoism is ridiculous at that level, but it does kind of highlight something that was present in other parts of society, just to an absurd degree. But whatever Trump's motivation was, there were plenty of critics who said there were very good reasons to be concerned about TikTok, and right away the folks at TikTok got to work creating a system that would attempt to mollify the concerns of US critics. Now, interestingly, this week, Donald Trump has argued that a ban on TikTok would be a bad idea. And we'll get into why he has reversed his position after he led the charge to go after TikTok just four years ago. Spoiler alert, It probably has a lot to do with gobs and gobs of money as well as an axe he has to grind against one of TikTok's competitors, all right, So one reason that US leaders have sought ban on TikTok has to do with this perceived threat of Chinese espionage. Never Mind if it's a real threat or not, the perception is all that matters. That American citizens, through their obsession and use of this app, would essentially be handing over loads of information and intelligence to a foreign adversary, and the United States would be weakened from a national security level. But that's not the only reason some leaders have their sites set on TikTok. Another is a concern that the app is manipulating users, particularly young users, either intentionally or otherwise by algorithmically sharing misinformation, propaganda, and harmful material. So if we assume there's an intentionality to this, that TikTok is purposefully doing this, then there's a fear that TikTok, through influence from Byteedance and then by extension, the Chinese Communist Party, would use this app to deliver, say, Chinese propaganda to US users. This is the someone please think of the children argument. Now, I would argue that even if this were true, it's a dumb reason to specifically target TikTok. In fact, it's a dumb reason to target apps that are controlled by a foreign adversary. So why do I think it's a dumb idea? Well, I think it's a dumb idea because China is already doing this on all social apps out there. They are flooding social apps with propaganda and misinformation. We've actually seen plenty of cases in which Chinese backed agents have created and shared misinformation across platforms that include Facebook and x formerly known as Twitter, among others. China doesn't even need to have back end access to any of these platforms to do it. They don't have back end access to Meta or to X. They don't own those platforms, but they don't need to in order to meet the goal of flooding social media with misinformation in an attempt to disrupt or manipulate the American public. Whether TikTok has a Chinese parent company or not, in no way changes how China is using social media to target Americans. I guarantee you if this bill became long, and if my Dance was compelled to divest itself of TikTok, that would not stop China from using TikTok to deliver misinformation because they don't need back end access to do that. They just post just like anybody else. So yeah, that's a really dumb reason to single out TikTok. In my opinion, there's a legitimate concern that TikTok's recommendation algorithm can create a bad situation or make a bad situation way worse than it was, because engaging with content on TikTok essentially tells the app, hey, this is the kind of thing I'm into now. At that point, the app starts to pull similar content to serve up to you. Like, people who like this typically like that, So let's serve that to this user now. And if you've indicated that you like a particular kin of content, the app's going to make sure to bring other stuff like that to your attention because the app's goal is to keep you on the app for as long as possible, or to bring you back to the app whenever you stop to go do something else. So if the algorithm was just serving up random stuff and most of it didn't appeal to you, well you would probably lose interest in the app and you'd stop using it. That's not good for the app. So if you watch a video all the way through, and let's say that video promoted misinformation or an extremist stance on a particular subject, well, you'd be more likely to see similar stuff in the future, and that could be one factor that could help lead a person to adopt more radical views of their own. I'm not going to suggest that TikTok on its own is responsible for radicalizing populations of people, but it can be a contributing factor. However, this is the case with lots of recommendation algorithms, not just on TikTok, not just on on foreign controlled apps. Algorithms are amorl They don't judge the content. They're just looking for stuff that keeps you on the respective platform, the stuff that keeps you engaged and your eyeballs glued to the screen. It doesn't matter to these apps if the content happens to be cute puppies or you know, like dude Bros who are pumping out a set of tricep dips, or if it's some random person complaining about you know, liberal politics or conservative politics. The algorithm doesn't care what's in the posts. It just cares that you care and that's true on Facebook and other places, not just TikTok. So again, it makes no sense to single out TikTok for this problem because it's not a problem that's just a TikTok problem. This is a bigger issue. So either way, singling out TikTok simply because it has a Chinese parent company is really short sighted. The problems associated with recommendation algorithms are real. In my opinion, I do think recommendation algorithms cause a lot of issues or exacerbate a lot of problems. Maybe they don't cause them, but I think they can make them way worse. If there's already a seed there, they can really make that seed grow into a pretty toxic plant. They ignore international borders. This is not something that's specific to Chinese owned companies. It might be possible for Chinese interference to force Byteedance to in turn force TikTok to manipulate the recommendation algorithm and skew it in some way, but that's not really necessary. You don't need to go to that length. The skewing just happens through the use of the app itself. However, just because there might be a possibility is all it takes, because again it's the perceived threat that's important, not whether or not the threat is real. Anyway, a ton of politicians have expressed concerns that content on TikTok can be mentally harmful to users, that it can promote dangerous activities and stunts, and it can radicalize individuals, and it can reinforce harmful self images, and I can't necessarily argue against that other than to say the problem is much bigger than just TikTok. As for data collection, I've said this on the show before too. Data collection can be a problem. But again, it doesn't have to be a foreign owned app that creates this problem. All of these different apps and platforms are collecting huge amounts of information. Meta is collecting truckloads of data on all of its users every single day, and a lot of this information ends up making its way to markets. There are companies that buy and sell information about people, and you don't have to be the company behind the platform to access that information. You can just purchase it on the market. So arguably you don't even have to have any interest in a particular app at all in order to take advantage of how those apps are collecting data. You can just purchase data from data brokers, and that's a problem that is independent of ownership of these platforms. So again, to actually address the problem of data collection, you can't just look at the app itself. You've got to look at the larger ecosystem. If all you're doing is stopping one app from being owned by a foreign company, you're plugging a tiny leak in a dam that has a massive crack all the way through the middle of it, and you're not really helping again, in my opinion, Okay, we're not done yet. We've got more to say about this whole situation. But before we get to that, let's take another quick break to thank our sponsors. Okay, we're back. So some US leaders are worried that TikTok report sense a data collection tool for the Chinese Communist Party. Some leaders are worried TikTok use is harmful on a more individual level. Some are worried that it's a misinformation delivery system. Some are arguing that it's a combination of all of these things. And that's what led to the House of Representatives in the United States voting overwhelmingly in favor of passing this bill that would ban TikTok unless it was divested from byteedance if it becomes law, And by overwhelming, I mean it passed three hundred and fifty two to sixty five, So three hundred and fifty two representatives voted in favor of it, only sixty five voted opposed. Fifty of those were Democrats, fifteen were Republican. Now that doesn't mean that this automatically becomes law. That's not how it works here in the United States. So the bill then must go to the US Senate, and the Senate has the opportunity to debate the bill, potentially to make changes to it before voting on it. And there's no guarantee that if the Senate does vote on this, because maybe they don't. But if they do vote on it, there's no guarantee they're going to follow the lead of the House of Representatives. President Joe Biden has indicated that he would sign such a bill into law if it makes it to his desk. So if the Senate does vote in favor of this bill, it's unlikely that Biden would veto it. It seems pretty likely that he would sign it into law. But these are still big ifs. And here's where we get into a whole bunch of politics. So, when this bill was coming up for a House vote, TikTok urged some of its users to reach out to their local representatives to urge them to vote against the bill, and reportedly tons of young people followed that request, and many of them were under the age of eighteen. That means they're not legally allowed to vote. You can't vote until you're eighteen, and that makes their voices carry far less weight. If I'm being honest, a politician will pay if constituents of a voting age reach out to express an opinion about a particular piece of legislation. This is because politicians, generally speaking, liked to get re elected. But if constituents aren't legally able to vote, well, there's not really any pressure there. Various folks in politics stated that kids were flooding office phone lines about this upcoming band, and most of them had no clue what Congress is, what the House of Representatives happens to be, what a representative is. There was a lot of ignorance being reported, and so staffers were having to field all these calls from children who were just upset that an app they liked was targeted, but they clearly had little to no idea what they were supposed to actually do, and so this plan backfired. A lot of representatives had this experience, and they said, see, you can see how this app is manipulating American children. That proves that our concerns are valid. So womp womp. TikTok's plan ended up kind of cementing one of the perceived threats that leaders have about this app. However, that being said, a whole bunch of TikTok's users are of voting age, like it might have been all the kids who are calling in, but that doesn't mean that only kids are using TikTok. Like seventy five percent of TikTok's users at least are of voting age. This is according to Explodingtopics dot Com, which has a page on TikTok's demographics, and it says one in four TikTok users are under the age of twenty, So even saying seventy five percent is being conservative because obviously under the age of twenty, anyone who's eighteen or nineteen can still vote in the United States, so some of that one in four statistic are still a voting age, So at least seventy five percent of TikTok users in America are of voting age. The majority of users on TikTok are between the ages of eighteen and twenty four. That is a lot of young people who are eligible to vote. So there is a worry among the US Senate that's supporting a bill that would ban this app would in turn sour the users who are in that age range. In an election year, which it is here in the United States, with an uncertain outcome where you don't know who's going to come out up front, you know, there's a gamble that you would take to support a bill that would be incredibly unpopular among young voters, and not everyone the Senate is really eager to take that gamble. So there's a real reason that a lot of Senators, a lot of Democrats in particular, are not eager to go along with this bill because it could mean losing the support of young voters. Now, this doesn't mean that the senators necessarily disagree with the premise of the bill. You know that TikTok could pose as a potential threat to US national security. Maybe they actually believe that, but they wouldn't necessarily like the consequences that would come with supporting such a bill. There could be a serious political backlash. So would young voters actually turn on leaders who voted in favor of banning TikTok? That's hard to say. I suspect a lot of senators worry that it's all it would take that just by opposing this app it would make voters say, that's it, I'm switching to the other side, you know, forget all the other issues that I disagree with politically or ideologically. I'm gonna swap because they ban TikTok. I don't know if that's actually true. That seems to me to not give enough credence to individual beliefs, but I don't know. I'm also old, so who knows. But anyway, all of that discussion is really for a different podcast. So the thought that senators would vote against their own convictions in order to preserve their political position is not very fun to think about. It kind of goes against the idealism that Americans are urged to adopt. But we all suspect, or at least feel like this is something that happens quite a bit, and you could argue that a senator is actually just voting in line with their constituents. That makes it a little bit easier to swallow. Right, If you vote against your own beliefs because the people you represent believe something else, that seems far more noble than you voting against your own beliefs just so that you get re elected in the future. Now, let's get back to Donald Trump. As I said earlier. In twenty twenty, he famously targeted TikTok. He issued an executive order quote addressing the threat posed by TikTok end quote. Now. That executive order demanded that byte Edance divest itself of TikTok and allow an American company to acquire it or else face a ban, which sounds kind of familiar, right. Trump cited concerns of Chinese interference in American affairs, including threats to US economy and national security, as reasons for this order. The executive order never went into effect, partly because of a legal challenge against the order that was brought in a federal court. But now Trump has reversed his position on TikTok. He has said that a ban on TikTok would be a bad idea. So what gives what has changed in the last four years that would cause such a dramatic reversal. Well, a lot of the following would be based on assumptions that various people have made, But let's start with what Trump has said publicly. One thing he has mentioned is that a lot of people love TikTok and that quote a lot of young kids on TikTok will go crazy without it end quote. But you know that was true in twenty twenty two. It's not like in twenty twenty. Also, I guess I should say not twenty twenty two, but it was true in twenty twenty. So that doesn't seem like it should be enough to change his position unless over time he's developed more of an appreciation for how many people love their ding Dang tiktoks like that. That was never in doubt. But here's another potential reason for his change of heart. And that reason has a name, and that name is Jeff Yas. So who is Jeff Yas? He's a conservative billionaire and by that I mean he's worth nearly thirty billion dollars and he's contributed significantly to multiple conservative political organizations. And campaigns over the years. He's also a significant investor in Byte Dance. His investment firm reportedly owns a fifteen percent stake in Byte Dance. Obviously, Bye Dance's value hinges largely on TikTok remaining available in the United States, So Trump, as the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party in the presidential election, has a very strong incentive to not upset Yas's apple cart. Yas has donated a lot of money to a political organization called Club for Growth, which earlier actually opposed Trump's nomination as the Republican can and it's spent a lot of money trying to support alternative candidates, but none of that worked because the voters didn't care. And I'm pretty sure with a lot of grinding of teeth, the Club of Growth shifted its stance to align with Trump, and Trump has said publicly quote we're back in love. In the quote in response, I'm not kidding about that. I'm not paraphrasing. That's what Trump has said about his relationship with this organization. So you could argue that Trump's reversal instance has a lot more to do with him aligning with money that would support him in his effort to become president again than it does with a fundamental change of heart, and to me, it seems like a pretty safe bet. But there are also other reasons. Trump has said that one consequence of a ban on TikTok is that that would be incredibly beneficial to another company, namely Meta, and Trump has identified Meta as an enemy of the people. Now, a ton of the reason behind that deals with perceptions that Meta somehow interfered in the twenty twenty election by perhaps suppressing information that would have helped Trump or promoting information that would harm Trump politically. Now, I'll note that there are Democrat leaders who feel that the exact opposite scenario happened, that in fact, Meta was responsible for promoting misinformation or promoting Trump and suppressing information that would have been critical. So it's interesting to me that from both political sides there are completely opposite views as to what happened on Meta in the twenty twenty election. There's also the whole element of foreign interference using platforms like Facebook to manipulate voters. We know that happens. We know that Russia and China both have held massive campaigns. I guess really, what it boils down to is that Meda is a pretty lousy company from a political standpoint. Doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're from, Medda's not good. So part of Trump's reversal may have nothing to do with TikTok directly, but more to do with Meta. Now, personally, I'm not a fan of Zuckerberg or his company. I think Meta has done a lot of shady things, and has over the years leaned very hard on the political system to make sure these shady things didn't lead to negative consequences for the company. I don't necessarily believe that Meta has intentionally tried to sway politics one way or the other, apart from, you know, favoring Meda's business practices. But I do think tons of parties with various motivations have leveraged Meta's platforms in order to manipulate voters, and Meta has not done enough to counter that anyway. It's interesting to see that Donald Trump hasn't addressed TikTok's link to China, which of course is what he cited as his concern back in that executive order in twenty twenty. He hasn't talked about that really, at all. Instead, he's talked about how kids love the app and how TikTok's absence would benefit META. It actually would be pretty easy for Donald Trump to acknowledge TikTok's efforts to comply with US concerns, you know, with Project Texas. I think that would actually go a long way to stop people from asking how his view could change so dramatically in four years. And if he just said, look, TikTok took strides to protect US interests, like they spent more than a billion dollars to do so. If he said that, I think that would go a long way to assuaging the concerns about potential hypocrisy. And that's where we are. That's the technical and political situation here in the United States with regard to TikTok. Will the Senate follow the House of Representatives lead and pass the bill. That's not certain. I have my doubts because again, I think senators are going to worry about the political fallout if they make that kind of decision. If it weren't an allection year, I think things could potentially go a lot differently. But because it's an election year, because people are worried that would have an impact on the elections. I'm not entirely sure. I don't know that this bill's going to go any further. As for the idea of the US government stepping in to force a foreign owned company to divest itself of a property that is within the United States borders that actually has a precedence, like, it might seem like that's overstepping your bounds to like wrench assets from a company that is foreign based, but it's happened in America before. Famously, during World War One, the United States Navy essentially took over civilian radio stations that belonged to the Marconi Company, America's branch of the Marconi Company, which was based largely out of the UK, but also in other places. And after World War One, instead of returning those stations to the American Marconi Company, the Navy at first wanted to retain cont of those radio stations. They were not allowed to do that, and so ultimately General Electric stepped in and formed the Radio Corporation of America, and these previously foreign owned radio stations became American owned. There's an entire Tech Stuff episode about that in the archives if you want to learn more. About the Radio Corporation of America or RCA. So yeah, there is precedence for this. It's not like this kind of thing is completely unheard of. Again, in my own personal opinion, although I'm not a fan of TikTok, I feel like it does a lot of harm. I also have to admit one the ACLU argues that TikTok has First Amendment rights and that a lot of this bill essentially is ignoring that, and so it's unconstitutional. I acknowledge that there are a lot of people who make a living on TikTok, and it does seem unfair to just deny them their living. I don't really like that. And also, as I've said multiple times in this episode, the problems that leaders cite with TikTok are so much bigger than TikTok, and they go so far beyond a single platform and have nothing to do with you. Whether the ownership is domestic or foreign, it's such a smoke screen. It doesn't really matter, because we have this much larger issue with the way our data gets collected and bought and sold that have nothing to do directly with the platforms themselves. Apart from the fact that the platforms are sort of the siphon pulling all the data into the system. So yeah, I think this bill's misplaced. And it's not because I'm a TikTok fan, but because I think it's not looking at the real issue. It's not looking at the big picture, and I worry that it'll be ages before the United States takes a serious look at the big picture, largely because a lot of the leaders in the US government are old and they don't have a full understanding or appreciation for the tech ecosystem that exists that powers all of this, and it's going to take a while before you have folks who do have that appreciation to be in seats of power. So yeah, pretty rough week in tech from the US political perspective. And it'll be interesting to see how this plays out over the following months, whether or not senators will handle this or back away from it like it's radioactive, if it will have any impact in the actual election process later in the year. But that's it. That was our one big news item for this week that I really wanted to tackle. I originally was going to put in some other news items at the end, but I realized that this was just such a huge topic that I wouldn't really have space for it. But next week we should be back to doing other tech news episodes. We'll also have parts two and three of the rooster Teeth story, and my dog will hopefully apply to be an official correspondent as opposed to just insisting that he be part of this. I hope you are all well, and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer at iHeart Podcasts and How the Tech are You? So? On Fridays, I typically will do a news roundup of the tech news that happened over the previous week, and today we're going to do something a little different. We're going to cover one story in particular that really requires a lot more time and attention than what I would normally give, so we're gonna really dive into it. Also, we will continue the story of rooster Teeth. I do have at least two more parts for that. I thought it was just going to be a two parter, but man covering what happened over the last few years requires a lot more care and effort as well. So let's get to today's topic, which of course, is the United States ban on TikTok, which isn't a sure thing yet. I want to be sure to say that right up front, but the US House of Representatives passed a bill this week that ultimately could lead to a ban on TikTok if the bill ends up being passed into law and there are a couple of steps that have to happen before that becomes reality. But there's a ton of stuff going on here, including things that have nothing to do with tech, but everything that happens with money and politics. This is why you can't separate tech out from those things. I know there are a lot of people who complain about news stories where they're like, just cover the tech, don't talk about politics. That's not the way the world works. The world doesn't work with everything being in these separate silos that have no connection with each other. Politics and tech shape each other. Now, I would say that this particular story gets really gross because, in my opinion, the entirety of this focus on TikTok is misguided. I'm not saying that TikTok is good, I'm not saying it's bad, but I am saying that this whole thing misses the point. In my opinion, I also think it really exposes a ton of problems with America's political system. But these aren't things that I think anyone finds surprising. I think everyone, at least on some level, is aware that America's political system has issues. But we're going to get to all that first. What is this bill and how did we get here? Well, the bill is h R. Seven five two one. It's also known as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, And to quote the text of the bill directly, it is quote to protect the national security of the United States from I'm the threat posed by foreign adversary controlled applications such as TikTok and any successor application or service, and any other application or service developed or provided by Byteedance Limited or any entity under the control of byte Edance Limited end quote. So it's clear that this bill specifically targets TikTok's parent company, Byteedance Limited, not just any Chinese owned parent company or foreign owned company. However, the text of the actual bill does get far more general, and ultimately it does cover quote foreign adversary controlled applications end quote. So it's not just for TikTok, but it uses TikTok as sort of the primary example the paradigm, if you will. And foreign adversary in this context doesn't just mean a country that is on particularly unfriendly terms with the good old US of A. It's not just countries we've got beef with. It covers any entity, person, organization, company, et cetera that resides within the borders of such a country. So, while the phrase foreign adversary seems to suggest like a nation or state controlled entity, it's actually more broad than that. It's really any person or company that exists in such a country that then would be identified in the context of this bill as a foreign adversary. So essentially, the bill would require any APP that ultimately belongs to an entity that resides or exists within a country that had been identified as a foreign adversary to the United States. And there's a whole code that explains how that designation happens. Well, if this bill is enacted into law, then any such app currently available within the United States would have one hundred and eighty days before a ban is imposed by the US government. To avoid the ban, the foreign adversary can divest itself of the APP, that is, sell the APP or some version part of the APP to some other entity that is not a foreign adversary to the United States. Also, in the future, should the US President identify a new country as a foreign adversary, let's just say that for some reason the President says that I don't know France is a foreign adversary. At that point, then apps that originated out of France would have one hundred and eighty days to comply with this law before a ban would fall upon them like a bag of hammers. So how do you ban an app? How does that work? Well, this bill says the US would go after essentially the distribution infrastructure for apps, like the app stores. In other words, Section A of this bill states that quote it shall be unlawful for any entity to distribute, maintain, or update, or enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of a foreign adversary controlled application end quote, and then the section goes on. But essentially this bill would target stuff like the iOS app Store or the Android App Store. It also includes internet hosting services that would allow for the updating and maintenance of those apps. So not only would the app disappear from app stores within the United States, the apps would essentially lose all functionality because what the US is saying is you can't allow traffic to go to these apps. At the very least, you wouldn't be able to update the apps anymore within the United States, and presumably that would mean that you wouldn't get notifications you wouldn't be able to access new material, et cetera. Now, if these companies failed to comply with the law, they face a fine of five five thousand dollars per US user of that app. So for TikTok, that's more than one hundred and fifty million American users. So by my math, that's like seven hundred and fifty billion dollars in fines, which means that obviously these companies that are largely US based, would end all support for TikTok rather than face a nearly one trillion dollar fine. The bill also calls for the foreign adversary controlled app to provide user data upon request so that the user would be able to port their information to some alternative application. Now I'm not entirely certain how that could be achieved in a reasonable way. I suspect that this from a technical perspective, is largely difficult, at the very least possibly impossible to achieve so that you could port your TikTok profile well to something else. It doesn't just work that way. It's not apples to apples. To me, this seems like a pretty feeble attempt to playcate TikTok users who would otherwise be really upset to lose the content that they had created and consumed on an app like TikTok. So the implication seems to be, don't worry, We've put in a legal requirement that TikTok would have to give you all your stuff so that you can head on over to Instagram reels and do it all over there, or something like that. If the foreign adversary fails to comply with this part of the law, then they would be fined five hundred dollars per active user in the US, which is not nearly as hefty a hit obviously, but also I'm not sure how the US would ever collect on that, because again, if it's a foreign adversary controlled app, I don't know that there's the leverage to force the foreign adversary to pay up the fine. You could definitely go off against the US infrastructure that the government would be able to do, at least initially. I'm sure it would be immediately challenged in court, but this bill would at least allow for that approach. I don't know how you would do it for a foreign adversary, Like you could point to the company and say you owe us X amount of money, and the company says, okay, but we're over here, then you're over there, so I don't know. The bill goes on to single out TikTok and byte Dance again, but also states that the President can send a report to Congress identifying other apps that meet certain criteria, including specific threats to US national security, as well as what aspects of the app would need to be divested in order to avoid a ban. So if the President says, hey, this other app also I want to put under this same list of restrictions, you would have to have the President send that message to Congress and say specifically how this app represents a threat to national security. You can't just have a blank it approach. Presumably after a public report and the detailed account to Congress, the designation would then be acknowledged and the clock would begin to tick for that app. Now there's a bit more to the bill, including what measures a party can take to challenge the bill, but I think that's enough to have a conversation about this. By the way, the bill is just thirteen pages long, and by thirteen pages long, I mean like you've got to remember bills have lots of indented segments. So it's not even a full page of material. It's a pretty easy read. By the way, there's hardly any jargon in it. It isn't like one of those where you're like, whereas and so forth and a fourthwith and et cetera, et cetera. It doesn't come across like that. So I urge all of y'all to check it out if you prefer to have firsthand knowledge of a text as opposed to just relying on news articles and opinion pieces, some of which I suspect the writers never read the bill in the first place. Again, that's Hr. Five two one, and yeah, it's a quick read. It's not a fun read, but it is quick, So check it out now. For TikTok specifically, this bill essentially says either Byte Dance sells TikTok to some other entity, an entity that does not reside or exist inside an adversarial country, or we will bring down the power of the US government on the distribution infrastructure for the app to make sure that no one in the US can get it or use it. That's a pretty massive ultimatum, you know, divest TikTok or the TikTok will face a national band. So how did we get here? Now that question is actually super complex because there are a lot of different reasons why various political leaders have taken aim at TikTok in particular. Now, chief among them is that byte Dance is a Chinese company, and the Chinese government has been known to get very involved with Chinese enterprises. It's common in China for large companies to reserve a spot at the highest levels of company oversight and governance for a representative of the Chinese Communist Party. So there's this perception that the Chinese Communist Party has literally a seat at the table of all these massive companies in China. Famously, China enacted a national intelligence law in twenty seventeen that compels Chinese citizens and organizations to quote support national intelligence work end quote, and that the government can actually demand cooperation that they do so. That's covered under articles seven and fourteen of that twenty seventeen law. So one interpretation of this law is that the Chinese government could go to byte Dance and demand that the companies share all the data it has through an app like TikTok, and byte Dance would be required by Chinese law to do so. They would have have to hand that data over to the Chinese Communist Party. Now, if that information included sensitive data that could compromise the national security of the United States, that's a problem. If in fact, this would serve as a type of espionage, that's a huge issue. But that's a big if. And here's the thing. If the possibility exists, unfortunately, that's enough. It's kind of like trying to undermine democracy. You don't actually have to compromise voting machines to undermine democracy. All you have to do is prove that it's possible to compromise a voting machine. If you prove it's possible, well then you insert doubt into the minds of citizens. Because if it's possible to manipulate votes, well, then you can never be sure that the votes that came out actually reflect the will of the people, right, you can't be sure that the results of any election are legitimate, And by undermining the confidence people have in the process, you undermine democracy itself. Democracy with a big d the doubt is all that's needed. So, if it's possible the Chinese Communist Party could force Byteedance to hand over gobs of data belonging to American citizens. That's all that's needed to serve as a threat, even if the actual scenario never happens. So you could argue, well, technically, yeah, it's possible, but it hasn't happened, and everyone at Might Dance has expressed that this would never happen. That's not good enough, at least not in the eyes of the leaders who are concerned about this. Okay, I've been ranting for a bit, but we've got a ton more to get through about this issue, So let's take a quick break to thank our sponsors. Okay. So I was talking earlier about how the perception of a threat is the same thing as a threat in the eyes of politics, like it doesn't matter if the threat is real or not, which is infuriating, but it's also unfortunately true. TikTok and Byte Dance representatives have said numerous times that China's Communist Party has never interfered, has never been able to access this information, and that in fact, TikTok has taken steps to make sure to prevent that eventuality. So, for example, TikTok moved all US citizen data to servers within the United States that would not be accessible by Chinese Communist Party representatives. These servers belonged to the US company Oracle, so the company that actually is overseeing the servers is an American company that does not have ties to byte Dance. This was all part of Project Texas. As TikTok explains, that project has five pillars that encompass independent governance, data protection and access control, software assurance, content assurance, and monitoring and compliance. TikTok says, it quote spent the last two years developing a framework through discussions with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, and we've spent roughly one point five billion dollars to date on implementation end quote. So what TikTok is saying is, hey, we've been working in good faith with the US government for years now to ensure that this data remains safe and secure and within the boundaries and borders of the United States. Part of those efforts included the formation of a subsidiary called TikTok Us Data Security, which is quote an entirely independent business entity tasked with managing all business functions that require access to user data identified by the US god government as needing additional protection and safeguarding the systems that deliver content on the app in the US to ensure that it is free from foreign manipulation end quote. Now there's a ton more to say about TikTok's efforts to avoid the situation that would fall on the company if this bill were to get passed into law, but I urge you to check out TikTok's post on the matter. You can find it at USDs dot TikTok dot com slash USDs dash about. That's a lot, but that's where you can read up on TikTok's policies here. Now, I will also add there have been reports, whether you know, legitimate or not, people in China allegedly accessing TikTok data, not always US citizen data, but that in fact Byteedance employees have been able to access user information through TikTok. So there are a lot of conflicting reports about whether or not TikTok's infrastructure is sort of air gapped from China or not, and their conflicting reports about whether ByteDance has access to the information. That uncertainty has further fueled the political scenario that we're in today. Now, why did Project Texas happen? In the first place. Well, it became a necessity because back in twenty twenty, the then US President Donald Trump had identified TikTok as a threat to national security. Now, in many ways, this was really a part of a larger trade conflict that the United States had with China. At that time, Trump and China had engaged in sort of a trade war with one another, and some argued that Trump's reasoning was based more on a desire to find leverage against China and not so much about responding to a perceived threat to national security. So some were saying that the national security message was really just kind of a front and that really this was more of the trade situation. Others felt that this was just the latest in a very long line of xenophobic positions that various US leaders have taken over the years, and this is not related to any specific party. This has happened over and over with leaders across all different political ideologies. That despite the fact that America is made up of a people who mostly come from other places, apart from Native Americans who were here before everybody else, there's still a really healthy distrust among some circles of citizens of anyone who comes from anywhere other than the United States. In order to really see this in action like highlighted to an absurd degree, just watch footage of any wrestling promotion from the nineteen seventies to the early two thousands in which the foreigner gimmick was used to as establish a heel or a bad guy. You would get people channing USA, USA, USA. It's the jingoism is ridiculous at that level, but it does kind of highlight something that was present in other parts of society, just to an absurd degree. But whatever Trump's motivation was, there were plenty of critics who said there were very good reasons to be concerned about TikTok, and right away the folks at TikTok got to work creating a system that would attempt to mollify the concerns of US critics. Now, interestingly, this week, Donald Trump has argued that a ban on TikTok would be a bad idea. And we'll get into why he has reversed his position after he led the charge to go after TikTok just four years ago. Spoiler alert, It probably has a lot to do with gobs and gobs of money as well as an axe he has to grind against one of TikTok's competitors, all right, So one reason that US leaders have sought ban on TikTok has to do with this perceived threat of Chinese espionage. Never Mind if it's a real threat or not, the perception is all that matters. That American citizens, through their obsession and use of this app, would essentially be handing over loads of information and intelligence to a foreign adversary, and the United States would be weakened from a national security level. But that's not the only reason some leaders have their sites set on TikTok. Another is a concern that the app is manipulating users, particularly young users, either intentionally or otherwise by algorithmically sharing misinformation, propaganda, and harmful material. So if we assume there's an intentionality to this, that TikTok is purposefully doing this, then there's a fear that TikTok, through influence from Byteedance and then by extension, the Chinese Communist Party, would use this app to deliver, say, Chinese propaganda to US users. This is the someone please think of the children argument. Now, I would argue that even if this were true, it's a dumb reason to specifically target TikTok. In fact, it's a dumb reason to target apps that are controlled by a foreign adversary. So why do I think it's a dumb idea? Well, I think it's a dumb idea because China is already doing this on all social apps out there. They are flooding social apps with propaganda and misinformation. We've actually seen plenty of cases in which Chinese backed agents have created and shared misinformation across platforms that include Facebook and x formerly known as Twitter, among others. China doesn't even need to have back end access to any of these platforms to do it. They don't have back end access to Meta or to X. They don't own those platforms, but they don't need to in order to meet the goal of flooding social media with misinformation in an attempt to disrupt or manipulate the American public. Whether TikTok has a Chinese parent company or not, in no way changes how China is using social media to target Americans. I guarantee you if this bill became long, and if my Dance was compelled to divest itself of TikTok, that would not stop China from using TikTok to deliver misinformation because they don't need back end access to do that. They just post just like anybody else. So yeah, that's a really dumb reason to single out TikTok. In my opinion, there's a legitimate concern that TikTok's recommendation algorithm can create a bad situation or make a bad situation way worse than it was, because engaging with content on TikTok essentially tells the app, hey, this is the kind of thing I'm into now. At that point, the app starts to pull similar content to serve up to you. Like, people who like this typically like that, So let's serve that to this user now. And if you've indicated that you like a particular kin of content, the app's going to make sure to bring other stuff like that to your attention because the app's goal is to keep you on the app for as long as possible, or to bring you back to the app whenever you stop to go do something else. So if the algorithm was just serving up random stuff and most of it didn't appeal to you, well you would probably lose interest in the app and you'd stop using it. That's not good for the app. So if you watch a video all the way through, and let's say that video promoted misinformation or an extremist stance on a particular subject, well, you'd be more likely to see similar stuff in the future, and that could be one factor that could help lead a person to adopt more radical views of their own. I'm not going to suggest that TikTok on its own is responsible for radicalizing populations of people, but it can be a contributing factor. However, this is the case with lots of recommendation algorithms, not just on TikTok, not just on on foreign controlled apps. Algorithms are amorl They don't judge the content. They're just looking for stuff that keeps you on the respective platform, the stuff that keeps you engaged and your eyeballs glued to the screen. It doesn't matter to these apps if the content happens to be cute puppies or you know, like dude Bros who are pumping out a set of tricep dips, or if it's some random person complaining about you know, liberal politics or conservative politics. The algorithm doesn't care what's in the posts. It just cares that you care and that's true on Facebook and other places, not just TikTok. So again, it makes no sense to single out TikTok for this problem because it's not a problem that's just a TikTok problem. This is a bigger issue. So either way, singling out TikTok simply because it has a Chinese parent company is really short sighted. The problems associated with recommendation algorithms are real. In my opinion, I do think recommendation algorithms cause a lot of issues or exacerbate a lot of problems. Maybe they don't cause them, but I think they can make them way worse. If there's already a seed there, they can really make that seed grow into a pretty toxic plant. They ignore international borders. This is not something that's specific to Chinese owned companies. It might be possible for Chinese interference to force Byteedance to in turn force TikTok to manipulate the recommendation algorithm and skew it in some way, but that's not really necessary. You don't need to go to that length. The skewing just happens through the use of the app itself. However, just because there might be a possibility is all it takes, because again it's the perceived threat that's important, not whether or not the threat is real. Anyway, a ton of politicians have expressed concerns that content on TikTok can be mentally harmful to users, that it can promote dangerous activities and stunts, and it can radicalize individuals, and it can reinforce harmful self images, and I can't necessarily argue against that other than to say the problem is much bigger than just TikTok. As for data collection, I've said this on the show before too. Data collection can be a problem. But again, it doesn't have to be a foreign owned app that creates this problem. All of these different apps and platforms are collecting huge amounts of information. Meta is collecting truckloads of data on all of its users every single day, and a lot of this information ends up making its way to markets. There are companies that buy and sell information about people, and you don't have to be the company behind the platform to access that information. You can just purchase it on the market. So arguably you don't even have to have any interest in a particular app at all in order to take advantage of how those apps are collecting data. You can just purchase data from data brokers, and that's a problem that is independent of ownership of these platforms. So again, to actually address the problem of data collection, you can't just look at the app itself. You've got to look at the larger ecosystem. If all you're doing is stopping one app from being owned by a foreign company, you're plugging a tiny leak in a dam that has a massive crack all the way through the middle of it, and you're not really helping again, in my opinion, Okay, we're not done yet. We've got more to say about this whole situation. But before we get to that, let's take another quick break to thank our sponsors. Okay, we're back. So some US leaders are worried that TikTok report sense a data collection tool for the Chinese Communist Party. Some leaders are worried TikTok use is harmful on a more individual level. Some are worried that it's a misinformation delivery system. Some are arguing that it's a combination of all of these things. And that's what led to the House of Representatives in the United States voting overwhelmingly in favor of passing this bill that would ban TikTok unless it was divested from byteedance if it becomes law, And by overwhelming, I mean it passed three hundred and fifty two to sixty five, So three hundred and fifty two representatives voted in favor of it, only sixty five voted opposed. Fifty of those were Democrats, fifteen were Republican. Now that doesn't mean that this automatically becomes law. That's not how it works here in the United States. So the bill then must go to the US Senate, and the Senate has the opportunity to debate the bill, potentially to make changes to it before voting on it. And there's no guarantee that if the Senate does vote on this, because maybe they don't. But if they do vote on it, there's no guarantee they're going to follow the lead of the House of Representatives. President Joe Biden has indicated that he would sign such a bill into law if it makes it to his desk. So if the Senate does vote in favor of this bill, it's unlikely that Biden would veto it. It seems pretty likely that he would sign it into law. But these are still big ifs. And here's where we get into a whole bunch of politics. So, when this bill was coming up for a House vote, TikTok urged some of its users to reach out to their local representatives to urge them to vote against the bill, and reportedly tons of young people followed that request, and many of them were under the age of eighteen. That means they're not legally allowed to vote. You can't vote until you're eighteen, and that makes their voices carry far less weight. If I'm being honest, a politician will pay if constituents of a voting age reach out to express an opinion about a particular piece of legislation. This is because politicians, generally speaking, liked to get re elected. But if constituents aren't legally able to vote, well, there's not really any pressure there. Various folks in politics stated that kids were flooding office phone lines about this upcoming band, and most of them had no clue what Congress is, what the House of Representatives happens to be, what a representative is. There was a lot of ignorance being reported, and so staffers were having to field all these calls from children who were just upset that an app they liked was targeted, but they clearly had little to no idea what they were supposed to actually do, and so this plan backfired. A lot of representatives had this experience, and they said, see, you can see how this app is manipulating American children. That proves that our concerns are valid. So womp womp. TikTok's plan ended up kind of cementing one of the perceived threats that leaders have about this app. However, that being said, a whole bunch of TikTok's users are of voting age, like it might have been all the kids who are calling in, but that doesn't mean that only kids are using TikTok. Like seventy five percent of TikTok's users at least are of voting age. This is according to Explodingtopics dot Com, which has a page on TikTok's demographics, and it says one in four TikTok users are under the age of twenty, So even saying seventy five percent is being conservative because obviously under the age of twenty, anyone who's eighteen or nineteen can still vote in the United States, so some of that one in four statistic are still a voting age, So at least seventy five percent of TikTok users in America are of voting age. The majority of users on TikTok are between the ages of eighteen and twenty four. That is a lot of young people who are eligible to vote. So there is a worry among the US Senate that's supporting a bill that would ban this app would in turn sour the users who are in that age range. In an election year, which it is here in the United States, with an uncertain outcome where you don't know who's going to come out up front, you know, there's a gamble that you would take to support a bill that would be incredibly unpopular among young voters, and not everyone the Senate is really eager to take that gamble. So there's a real reason that a lot of Senators, a lot of Democrats in particular, are not eager to go along with this bill because it could mean losing the support of young voters. Now, this doesn't mean that the senators necessarily disagree with the premise of the bill. You know that TikTok could pose as a potential threat to US national security. Maybe they actually believe that, but they wouldn't necessarily like the consequences that would come with supporting such a bill. There could be a serious political backlash. So would young voters actually turn on leaders who voted in favor of banning TikTok? That's hard to say. I suspect a lot of senators worry that it's all it would take that just by opposing this app it would make voters say, that's it, I'm switching to the other side, you know, forget all the other issues that I disagree with politically or ideologically. I'm gonna swap because they ban TikTok. I don't know if that's actually true. That seems to me to not give enough credence to individual beliefs, but I don't know. I'm also old, so who knows. But anyway, all of that discussion is really for a different podcast. So the thought that senators would vote against their own convictions in order to preserve their political position is not very fun to think about. It kind of goes against the idealism that Americans are urged to adopt. But we all suspect, or at least feel like this is something that happens quite a bit, and you could argue that a senator is actually just voting in line with their constituents. That makes it a little bit easier to swallow. Right, If you vote against your own beliefs because the people you represent believe something else, that seems far more noble than you voting against your own beliefs just so that you get re elected in the future. Now, let's get back to Donald Trump. As I said earlier. In twenty twenty, he famously targeted TikTok. He issued an executive order quote addressing the threat posed by TikTok end quote. Now. That executive order demanded that byte Edance divest itself of TikTok and allow an American company to acquire it or else face a ban, which sounds kind of familiar, right. Trump cited concerns of Chinese interference in American affairs, including threats to US economy and national security, as reasons for this order. The executive order never went into effect, partly because of a legal challenge against the order that was brought in a federal court. But now Trump has reversed his position on TikTok. He has said that a ban on TikTok would be a bad idea. So what gives what has changed in the last four years that would cause such a dramatic reversal. Well, a lot of the following would be based on assumptions that various people have made, But let's start with what Trump has said publicly. One thing he has mentioned is that a lot of people love TikTok and that quote a lot of young kids on TikTok will go crazy without it end quote. But you know that was true in twenty twenty two. It's not like in twenty twenty. Also, I guess I should say not twenty twenty two, but it was true in twenty twenty. So that doesn't seem like it should be enough to change his position unless over time he's developed more of an appreciation for how many people love their ding Dang tiktoks like that. That was never in doubt. But here's another potential reason for his change of heart. And that reason has a name, and that name is Jeff Yas. So who is Jeff Yas? He's a conservative billionaire and by that I mean he's worth nearly thirty billion dollars and he's contributed significantly to multiple conservative political organizations. And campaigns over the years. He's also a significant investor in Byte Dance. His investment firm reportedly owns a fifteen percent stake in Byte Dance. Obviously, Bye Dance's value hinges largely on TikTok remaining available in the United States, So Trump, as the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party in the presidential election, has a very strong incentive to not upset Yas's apple cart. Yas has donated a lot of money to a political organization called Club for Growth, which earlier actually opposed Trump's nomination as the Republican can and it's spent a lot of money trying to support alternative candidates, but none of that worked because the voters didn't care. And I'm pretty sure with a lot of grinding of teeth, the Club of Growth shifted its stance to align with Trump, and Trump has said publicly quote we're back in love. In the quote in response, I'm not kidding about that. I'm not paraphrasing. That's what Trump has said about his relationship with this organization. So you could argue that Trump's reversal instance has a lot more to do with him aligning with money that would support him in his effort to become president again than it does with a fundamental change of heart, and to me, it seems like a pretty safe bet. But there are also other reasons. Trump has said that one consequence of a ban on TikTok is that that would be incredibly beneficial to another company, namely Meta, and Trump has identified Meta as an enemy of the people. Now, a ton of the reason behind that deals with perceptions that Meta somehow interfered in the twenty twenty election by perhaps suppressing information that would have helped Trump or promoting information that would harm Trump politically. Now, I'll note that there are Democrat leaders who feel that the exact opposite scenario happened, that in fact, Meta was responsible for promoting misinformation or promoting Trump and suppressing information that would have been critical. So it's interesting to me that from both political sides there are completely opposite views as to what happened on Meta in the twenty twenty election. There's also the whole element of foreign interference using platforms like Facebook to manipulate voters. We know that happens. We know that Russia and China both have held massive campaigns. I guess really, what it boils down to is that Meda is a pretty lousy company from a political standpoint. Doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're from, Medda's not good. So part of Trump's reversal may have nothing to do with TikTok directly, but more to do with Meta. Now, personally, I'm not a fan of Zuckerberg or his company. I think Meta has done a lot of shady things, and has over the years leaned very hard on the political system to make sure these shady things didn't lead to negative consequences for the company. I don't necessarily believe that Meta has intentionally tried to sway politics one way or the other, apart from, you know, favoring Meda's business practices. But I do think tons of parties with various motivations have leveraged Meta's platforms in order to manipulate voters, and Meta has not done enough to counter that anyway. It's interesting to see that Donald Trump hasn't addressed TikTok's link to China, which of course is what he cited as his concern back in that executive order in twenty twenty. He hasn't talked about that really, at all. Instead, he's talked about how kids love the app and how TikTok's absence would benefit META. It actually would be pretty easy for Donald Trump to acknowledge TikTok's efforts to comply with US concerns, you know, with Project Texas. I think that would actually go a long way to stop people from asking how his view could change so dramatically in four years. And if he just said, look, TikTok took strides to protect US interests, like they spent more than a billion dollars to do so. If he said that, I think that would go a long way to assuaging the concerns about potential hypocrisy. And that's where we are. That's the technical and political situation here in the United States with regard to TikTok. Will the Senate follow the House of Representatives lead and pass the bill. That's not certain. I have my doubts because again, I think senators are going to worry about the political fallout if they make that kind of decision. If it weren't an allection year, I think things could potentially go a lot differently. But because it's an election year, because people are worried that would have an impact on the elections. I'm not entirely sure. I don't know that this bill's going to go any further. As for the idea of the US government stepping in to force a foreign owned company to divest itself of a property that is within the United States borders that actually has a precedence, like, it might seem like that's overstepping your bounds to like wrench assets from a company that is foreign based, but it's happened in America before. Famously, during World War One, the United States Navy essentially took over civilian radio stations that belonged to the Marconi Company, America's branch of the Marconi Company, which was based largely out of the UK, but also in other places. And after World War One, instead of returning those stations to the American Marconi Company, the Navy at first wanted to retain cont of those radio stations. They were not allowed to do that, and so ultimately General Electric stepped in and formed the Radio Corporation of America, and these previously foreign owned radio stations became American owned. There's an entire Tech Stuff episode about that in the archives if you want to learn more. About the Radio Corporation of America or RCA. So yeah, there is precedence for this. It's not like this kind of thing is completely unheard of. Again, in my own personal opinion, although I'm not a fan of TikTok, I feel like it does a lot of harm. I also have to admit one the ACLU argues that TikTok has First Amendment rights and that a lot of this bill essentially is ignoring that, and so it's unconstitutional. I acknowledge that there are a lot of people who make a living on TikTok, and it does seem unfair to just deny them their living. I don't really like that. And also, as I've said multiple times in this episode, the problems that leaders cite with TikTok are so much bigger than TikTok, and they go so far beyond a single platform and have nothing to do with you. Whether the ownership is domestic or foreign, it's such a smoke screen. It doesn't really matter, because we have this much larger issue with the way our data gets collected and bought and sold that have nothing to do directly with the platforms themselves. Apart from the fact that the platforms are sort of the siphon pulling all the data into the system. So yeah, I think this bill's misplaced. And it's not because I'm a TikTok fan, but because I think it's not looking at the real issue. It's not looking at the big picture, and I worry that it'll be ages before the United States takes a serious look at the big picture, largely because a lot of the leaders in the US government are old and they don't have a full understanding or appreciation for the tech ecosystem that exists that powers all of this, and it's going to take a while before you have folks who do have that appreciation to be in seats of power. So yeah, pretty rough week in tech from the US political perspective. And it'll be interesting to see how this plays out over the following months, whether or not senators will handle this or back away from it like it's radioactive, if it will have any impact in the actual election process later in the year. But that's it. That was our one big news item for this week that I really wanted to tackle. I originally was going to put in some other news items at the end, but I realized that this was just such a huge topic that I wouldn't really have space for it. But next week we should be back to doing other tech news episodes. We'll also have parts two and three of the rooster Teeth story, and my dog will hopefully apply to be an official correspondent as opposed to just insisting that he be part of this. I hope you are all well, and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.