0:00

Proving that there's no upper age limit

0:02

on social media, here's US President Joe

0:04

Biden announcing his arrival on TikTok. Game.

0:06

Jason Kelsey or Travis Kelsey? Mama Kelsey.

0:08

I think she makes great chocolate chip

0:10

cookies. Deviously plotting to rig the season

0:12

so the Chiefs would make the Super

0:14

Bowl or the Chiefs just being a

0:16

good football team? You're getting trouble, Fatem.

0:20

Trump or Biden? You kidding? Biden.

0:24

Two months on from that. Well, the

0:26

president has just signed a bill

0:28

sorting aid to Ukraine and Israel,

0:30

but which could also ban the

0:33

Chinese owned TikTok video sharing site

0:35

unless it finds new, more palatable

0:37

owners within a year. Not

0:40

for the first time, I will happily admit

0:42

my ignorance. Aside from searching

0:44

for videos of myself, I've never really

0:47

taken to TikTok. Yet

0:49

with one and a half billion users each

0:51

month, I accept my outlier status. So

0:54

why have US lawmakers come down

0:56

so hard on a site most

0:58

of us know for teenagers lip-syncing

1:00

badly whilst dancing to popular music?

1:03

I'm Neil Patterson and in this edition of

1:05

The Daily, we will explore why the clock

1:07

is ticking for TikTok. Well,

1:10

let's start with Sky's technology correspondent,

1:12

Artie Natyappan. Look, let's

1:14

start with the absolute brass

1:16

tacks here. TikTok. For the

1:18

uninitiated, what exactly is it? It's

1:21

a video sharing app. The difference with TikTok is

1:23

that you'll see a lot of videos by people

1:25

that you don't know. And virality is a lot

1:27

more common there because it's not just about following

1:29

your friends or seeing people that you've chosen to

1:31

follow, but you'll be exposed to a whole load

1:33

of different content that is supposed to be based

1:35

through an algorithm on what you've engaged with or

1:38

shown interest in. And people are exposed to a

1:40

lot of different creators from around the world. All

1:42

of which suggest to me, Artie, that this is

1:44

big business, that there are significant revenues involved in

1:47

a tech company of this scale. Definitely.

1:49

Even if you go on that app, there are

1:51

adverts everywhere. Clearly, a lot

1:53

of companies want to be involved to get eyes

1:55

on their products. So there is a lot of

1:57

revenue associated with TikTok. think

2:00

about the number of users it makes sense. I mean,

2:02

in the US alone, it's 170 million users. In

2:06

the UK, it's some 20 million users.

2:08

So we are talking about huge numbers. So

2:10

why then are the Americans so

2:12

hellbent on getting rid of it? There's

2:15

a little bit of precedent for this. They're not the first

2:17

country to do it. India was

2:19

actually one of TikTok's biggest markets before they

2:21

banned the app in the June of 2020.

2:25

It's already banned in other countries,

2:27

Afghanistan, Nepal and others. And

2:30

the US has been discussing this for a

2:32

while. I would say in terms of the

2:34

why now question, there is also a little

2:36

bit of public sentiment, voter sentiment ahead of

2:38

the November elections that comes into play here.

2:40

The ban probably still wouldn't be

2:42

for a few years. But I think that

2:44

in terms of messaging, the US government

2:47

is really keen to put it through

2:49

for all intents and purposes this side

2:51

of the election. Is

2:53

it possible that as you're alluding

2:55

to there, there is a broader

2:57

geopolitical dimension to this? I mean,

2:59

China themselves have pulled WhatsApp and

3:01

threads to apps from the Apple

3:03

store in Beijing. So is this

3:06

is it potentially just a bit of tit for tat? I

3:09

think that when you talk about these tech

3:11

giants, you really can't separate it from geopolitics

3:13

anymore. They're just too big. They essentially act

3:15

like a state in themselves. And so when

3:17

you have tech giants in America like Meta,

3:19

and you have tech giants like TikTok in

3:21

China or Huawei, there is always a bit

3:24

of some level of connection that policymakers see

3:26

between the two. And so for all intents

3:28

and purposes, when you're talking about America, you

3:30

might as well be talking about Meta. When

3:32

you're talking about TikTok, you're also talking about

3:34

China. And so I do think that a

3:37

lot of these moves to curb tech

3:40

giants scope or data

3:43

gathering ability or ability to use

3:45

that data is often linked with

3:47

diplomatic relations. Certainly, whenever we

3:49

talk about TikTok, we tend to say

3:52

it is owned by China, but but

3:54

obviously, technically, it's owned by ByteDance, Chinese

3:56

company. And it's not as if

3:59

they aren't being offered. alternatives by the

4:01

US government other than an outright

4:03

ban. I mean what are those

4:05

alternatives? So what the US

4:07

government is signing is going to be

4:09

a nine month period in which ByteDance

4:11

will be able to sell at stake

4:13

to a non-Chinese company. If that

4:15

doesn't happen but the presidency's that in the

4:17

next three months that could happen there is

4:19

a bit of a three month grace period.

4:21

So essentially there's a year for that sale

4:23

to happen before American users would not be

4:25

able to use TikTok. But

4:28

having said that even if this

4:30

passes it's likely that there will

4:32

be some resistance, appeals, legal challenges

4:34

and this could extend the process

4:36

by several years. So that means that there

4:38

isn't really an immediate threat to the use

4:40

of TikTok in America but I do think

4:42

that this is the start of the process

4:45

of it being forced out of the country

4:47

if everyone's position stays as it is. What

4:49

is the likelihood that ByteDance would want

4:51

to sell in the first place? Because

4:53

I suspect that there might be more

4:55

than a few suitors. There has

4:57

been speculation that some of the suitors

4:59

would be some of TikTok's competitors but

5:01

again that is just speculation at this

5:04

stage. They've come down hard against the

5:06

claims that they hand data to the

5:08

Chinese government. They've said that their operations

5:10

in China are very different, their operations

5:12

in America. Although different former employees have

5:14

said different things about this but the

5:16

TikTok line has always been that data

5:19

is protected, it's not shared with the government and

5:21

that they have no intention to sell on their

5:24

stake. Yeah but we've heard that

5:26

before, haven't we? Most notably from every

5:28

other single tech firm that has ever

5:30

operated in the social media arena. Yeah

5:32

I think this is an interesting one actually

5:35

because the question arises about how different are

5:37

they really. I mean we haven't had a

5:39

lot of conclusive evidence that suggests that the

5:41

level of data gathering by TikTok is necessarily

5:44

much more invasive than Meza which owns Facebook

5:47

and Instagram. The kind of data that you

5:49

can expect that these companies gather are things

5:51

like what device you're using, the location that

5:53

you're using, the device from, what content you

5:55

engage with and even the keystrokes that you're

5:58

using when you're in the business. actually

6:00

typing on the app. So it raises the

6:02

question about why TikTok and I think that

6:04

that kind of comes down to distrust

6:07

of China, particularly among American officials and

6:09

the American public. I suppose what I'm

6:11

driving these questions towards

6:13

is asking you, Artie, our

6:16

technology correspondent active on all

6:18

these websites and whether

6:20

or not you've ever had to

6:22

give yourself a little bit of pause

6:25

and think about the way in which

6:27

information about you, of all people, could

6:30

potentially be being shared with others. Absolutely.

6:33

It's something that I think about a

6:36

lot, you know, as a journalist and also someone who

6:38

shares a lot of information on these platforms. But I

6:40

just think that there are settings on all of these

6:42

apps that you can try and avoid certain information

6:44

being shown publicly or inputting as little

6:47

as you can. But I think that

6:49

when it comes to beyond those, we

6:51

don't have a great deal of protection

6:53

about what happens to our data afterwards if

6:55

it goes to third parties, if

6:58

unknowingly we're giving

7:00

it to a lot more people than we think we

7:02

are. So I think where I feel I can control

7:04

it, I do try and exercise a little bit of

7:06

literacy and limit the information. But there is also a

7:08

sense of this is a society we live in and

7:10

I've kind of accepted that to some extent. Artie,

7:13

many thanks for joining us. Really appreciate it.

7:15

After the break, we will be looking in

7:17

more depth at the impact TikTok has had

7:20

and the gap it would leave if banned. Back

7:22

soon. Welcome

7:26

back. One of the, I

7:28

suppose, admirable features of the TikTok platform

7:31

is that it gives people a voice

7:33

and TikTokers, for that is what I

7:35

am reliably informed they are called, well,

7:37

they're making theirs heard over the potential

7:39

ban. We are starving. People are

7:41

dying. People are in jail for marijuana. We're in a

7:43

war that we should not be in the first place.

7:46

And TikTok is our most pressing concern.

7:48

I don't think so. The app is

7:51

so much more than just an app

7:53

for dumb TikTok dances. So

7:55

when I hear these elected officials literally

7:58

mock and make fun of TikTok. and

8:00

its creators. I'm

8:02

disgusted. But, much as you

8:05

might ask of my social media

8:07

output, is anybody listening? Chris

8:09

Stoker-Walker is a technology journalist and the

8:11

author of TikTok Boom, the inside story

8:14

of the world's favourite app. Chris, good

8:16

to see you. Just explain the United

8:18

States thinking, what does the US know

8:21

that the rest of us don't? That's

8:23

the killer question, it was one that

8:25

we don't really know the answer to.

8:27

Of course, we've had about a year

8:30

of this wrangling over

8:32

TikTok. Almost literally a year ago

8:34

actually, there was this big brouhaha

8:36

around the European Union, around Canada,

8:39

around countries like it, and also our

8:41

own UK Parliament, where they said, actually, this is

8:44

a little bit of a dodgy app, we shouldn't

8:46

be putting it on our official phones. And back

8:49

then, people from Sky News, people like

8:51

myself and lots of others, were asking

8:53

questions of those authorities of saying, well,

8:55

if something has changed and now you're

8:57

really worried about this, what

8:59

is that evidence? Can you show it to us? Can

9:01

you share it with us? Because I want to know

9:03

as well if there's an issue. And I think we

9:06

haven't yet had that, and this

9:08

is yet another kind of concerning

9:10

step towards claiming this is some

9:12

sort of national security risk. But

9:14

there doesn't seem to be any

9:16

evidence beyond trust us, this is

9:18

a bad thing. You don't

9:20

want to have this on your phone. We need

9:22

to one-site national security concerns, and

9:24

just imagine that this is about

9:26

the data mining that TikTok clearly

9:28

would be able to do. I

9:31

mean, we've been here before, haven't we? We've

9:34

seen it with every other social media

9:36

platform, that there has been an ability

9:38

for the owners of those organisations to

9:40

take your data and sell it off

9:43

to the highest bidder. We've all become really

9:45

much more sceptical, host

9:47

Cambridge Analytica, that moment in 2018 when

9:50

we realised that actually some of the data that

9:52

we give to Facebook could be used in ways

9:54

that we didn't realise to maybe

9:57

target us politically to try and shift

9:59

our perception. and sway

10:01

opinions. And since

10:04

then there's been this heightened awareness, I think,

10:06

of the kind of

10:08

dragnet of social media and the

10:10

data that it gets from us.

10:13

But the problem is that we seem to

10:15

have misdiagnosed this issue as not one of big

10:17

tech more generally, but we're saying actually, the

10:20

problem here is China. And you're quite right. If we

10:23

were to ban TikTok, and if all

10:26

of this was a deep state plot

10:28

by the Chinese Communist Party to try

10:30

and needle its way into our minds,

10:32

and those are two pretty big conditional

10:35

questions that are certainly far from

10:37

being assured. There's nothing really to

10:39

stop China or some sort of,

10:42

you know, outrider for it going

10:44

into the open market and buying

10:47

this data from third party brokers

10:49

or targeting us through Facebook or

10:51

Instagram adverts. So yeah, it is

10:54

interesting. And I think that there's

10:57

a whole lot of geopolitics going on here that are

10:59

tied up with the tech that we have to kind

11:01

of acknowledge and not overlook. So

11:03

what is so special about

11:06

this particular platform? There have been any

11:08

number of video sharing websites in the

11:10

past, I think even of dear

11:13

departed vine, we had seven seconds

11:15

of video for a very long

11:17

time. And that was enough. What

11:19

is special specific to TikTok that

11:21

has seen it almost unbelievable growth,

11:23

the kind of secret source behind

11:25

TikTok. And I suppose one of

11:27

the things that maybe those who

11:29

are China Hawks are really worried

11:31

about is that innate ability that

11:33

TikTok seems to have to know

11:36

what exactly we're interested in and to feed us

11:38

more of it. And that comes

11:40

from the algorithm. So this is

11:42

kind of a different approach to

11:44

previous generations of social media that

11:46

would often rely on what's called

11:48

the social graph. And the social

11:50

graph is essentially, you

11:53

and I may share interests and you and

11:55

I may have commonalities. We're both journalists,

11:57

we're both interested, we're both kind

11:59

of. Maybe slightly won't issue

12:01

a little bit kind of new Yes,

12:04

sir. It's been for yourself word into your

12:06

mouth Neil But yeah, and and you know

12:08

because of that what you're interested in may

12:11

also be somewhat what I'm interested in That

12:13

was the way that social media used to

12:15

work in this sort of grand old days

12:18

with tick tock It's much different. It's tailored

12:20

only to you So tick tock uses that

12:22

information on everything from kind of the split

12:24

second that we decide to move on to

12:27

the next video to whether we share it

12:29

with our friends or whether we comment on it

12:31

to You know get to know

12:33

us better than we know ourselves and

12:35

with that comes a kind of almost

12:37

addiction so we spend more than the

12:39

feature film length on tick tock every

12:41

single day the average user and They

12:44

can be quite obsessive. So that I

12:46

think is why tick tock has proved

12:48

quite so successful Then there's also the

12:50

business stuff of their big company backed

12:52

by bite dance, which has billions of

12:54

dollars to throw at advertising campaigns There's

12:56

a huge economic consequence to it being

12:58

removed from the US marketplace, isn't there?

13:00

There is and I caveat this Neil

13:02

by saying we should always take these

13:04

numbers with a huge grain of salt

13:06

But tick tock has put out data

13:09

that suggests that they they contributed something

13:11

like 24 billion dollars to

13:13

the US economy in 2023 now Probably

13:16

not actually that much but it is still notable.

13:18

I think that you have a lot of people

13:21

Thousands if not hundreds of

13:23

thousands maybe even some millions that

13:25

are making money through posting videos

13:27

directly onto tick-tock And then you

13:30

have also the kind of second and third order

13:32

effects of that. So a local

13:34

shop That's advertising for instance their latest

13:36

line of clothing through tick-tock videos Who

13:39

then has people going to the store

13:41

to buy them or you

13:43

know, I wanted a story in

13:45

the UK on A petrol

13:47

station that happened to be kind of full

13:50

of American candy and really cool sweets and

13:52

things like that And they were posting videos

13:54

on tick-tock. They went super viral and suddenly

13:56

the cues went out the door So if

13:59

you lose that then suddenly a lot of

14:01

users maybe lose the ability to connect

14:03

with everyday people. And that

14:05

could have pretty significant economic impacts.

14:08

But isn't this short-form video available

14:10

on other platforms? You think of

14:12

Instagram reels, I mean Twitter, you

14:15

can still watch them, you can

14:17

sit and crawl in those videos

14:19

for an absolute age. And

14:22

I speak as someone who has found

14:24

himself spending far, far too much time

14:27

on YouTube shorts really, really

14:29

addictive. They don't have that algorithm, they

14:31

don't have the uncanny ability to do this.

14:33

And part of the reason is TikTok's

14:36

algorithm has been fine-tuned over many,

14:38

many years and actually redates TikTok.

14:41

And I think one

14:44

of the things that people often

14:46

overlook is the parent company ByteDance,

14:48

they kind of lucked into a video

14:51

app maybe five, six, seven years ago

14:53

in China. But before that, they were

14:55

gathering data on users there and really

14:57

fine-tuning this idea of showing

14:59

you the videos or the content that

15:01

you're particularly interested in. It is really

15:04

that secret source of the algorithm that

15:06

has meant TikTok has kind of thrived

15:08

while the others are still trying to

15:10

compete a little bit for second place.

15:12

Isn't it just logical that we should

15:15

in the West be cynical

15:17

when it comes to China's

15:19

influence in the tech sphere? I mean, we

15:21

know for a fact that they

15:23

are very, very active when it

15:25

comes to cyber. We know that

15:28

Chinese spies surveil the heck out

15:30

of Washington, London, any opportunity that

15:32

they get. The West has finally

15:34

woken up to the threat that

15:36

that poses through Huawei

15:38

and others, of course. Doesn't

15:41

it just make sense that we should

15:43

be skeptical about whatever the Chinese

15:45

overlords of TikTok tell us? I

15:47

do. I think that there is a real

15:49

importance to be skeptical about the

15:51

overreach of China. But I'm still

15:53

not convinced that this is the

15:55

big Trojan horse and suddenly

15:57

we're going to have kind of Chinese.

16:00

Communist Party foot soldiers appearing out of

16:02

TikTok and doctorating us

16:04

into repeating the Little Red Book or

16:06

something like that. I've tried over many

16:09

years to try and uncover

16:11

the secret bat phone between TikTok executives

16:13

and Xi Jinping and I haven't been

16:15

able to find it. I have found

16:18

kind of some challenging issues around TikTok

16:20

who try and downplay that China connection.

16:22

So one of the things that they'll

16:24

often say is no user data goes

16:27

to China. Well, it does in

16:29

one way in that they will kind

16:31

of aggregate user data, put it into

16:33

a spreadsheet and then send it to

16:35

China to figure out issues that arise

16:37

in the app with common users. I

16:39

think that we

16:41

set a dangerous precedent if

16:45

we start to close off these things. There

16:47

is a generational divide, I think,

16:49

now pretty obviously when it comes to the

16:51

way in which people use social media. I

16:54

mean, there are people, young people that I

16:56

work with, young people that

16:58

I know who are rather more comfortable,

17:00

who are rather more sanguine with

17:03

the level of information that they

17:05

put into the public domain because

17:07

they really do view themselves as

17:09

living part of their life in

17:12

that space. Isn't it ultimately these

17:14

days up to the consumer to

17:17

check the T's and C's, click yes

17:19

and just crack on and accept what

17:21

follows from it? It is. I think

17:23

that there are some issues with T's

17:25

and C's in that they're kind of

17:27

impenetrable and incredibly long and boring. But

17:29

you're right in that there is kind

17:31

of a gulf between those who are

17:33

really worried about this stuff who tend

17:35

to be older and not necessarily understand

17:38

the technology. I remember listening to Shozi

17:40

Chu, who's the Singaporean CEO of

17:42

TikTok appearing on the Hill in

17:45

the United States a

17:47

few months ago and he was having to field

17:49

questions like, does TikTok access my

17:51

broadband connection at home? Which is just

17:53

like, yes, of course it does. So

17:57

there is a kind of, I think an idea of we're scared of

17:59

what we're doing. we don't understand. But you're

18:01

right in that I think younger

18:04

generations are fully aware of this

18:06

stuff and they're kind of, you

18:08

know, the rose-tinted spectacles have

18:10

disappeared from them. They know what they're

18:13

getting into and I think that sometimes

18:15

there's this idea that we try and

18:18

overcorrect for some

18:20

of our past sins. And 20 years

18:23

ago we said Big Tech

18:25

was going to be our saver and it turned out

18:27

actually it wasn't. And now I think we're kind of

18:29

going in the opposite direction where we're maybe

18:32

stifling some stuff that isn't necessarily

18:34

as big a risk as we

18:36

think because we had those original

18:38

sins of letting US

18:40

Big Tech companies run

18:42

fast and loose with our data in the

18:44

past. But it's also the case isn't it

18:46

that no matter what happens, whether Biden signs

18:49

this or whatever else, you know, TikTok isn't

18:51

going anywhere in the United States any

18:53

time soon. Yeah and we understand also

18:56

from internal memos that have been sent

18:58

to TikTok employees in the immediate aftermath

19:00

of the vote on Saturday that TikTok

19:03

would appeal any ban anyway in the

19:05

courts. They did so in 2020. Donald

19:07

Trump tried to ban TikTok in the

19:10

run-up to the 2020 US presidential election

19:13

because he wanted to seem tough on

19:15

China and looks like Joe Biden's trying

19:17

to do the same. Back then TikTok

19:19

appealed that decision in court. They kind

19:22

of ran down the clock and Donald

19:24

Trump ended up losing the election. Away

19:26

from your professional capacity, do you use

19:28

TikTok? So why? I use it

19:31

as a viewer, not as a producer of

19:33

content until I have a book coming out

19:35

and then I always have to do the

19:37

promo. But yeah, I have a face for

19:39

podcasts and not ones for that appear on

19:42

video. Now I use a lot and I

19:44

think it's interesting because it's thought of as

19:47

kind of this teen-centric lip syncing and

19:49

dancing app which it was in its early

19:51

days back in the late 2010s but it's

19:55

now got huge numbers of users. You know,

19:57

one in three Brits are on the app.

20:00

on a regular basis and so you start to

20:02

see the whole world there and I

20:04

like my cooking so I start to watch cooking

20:07

stuff but also there's a huge number of journalists

20:09

and educators starting to be on there that I

20:11

think we would lose if they disappeared. Chris Stoker

20:13

Walker great to see you thanks very much for

20:15

joining us on the podcast. That's

20:17

your lot for today we'll see you again soon.