Will Tic Tok still be available in the US?

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
And the question now is what happensto TikTok? And for that answer,
or at least some explanation, Iguess Mike Dubuski, ABC News Technology reporters
joining us now, Mike, asI was bringing you on and I'm introducing
that, I'm thinking, well,wait a minute, if he doesn't have
the whole answer, I might getsued for false something there or other.

(00:22):
But what exactly is supposed to happenhere with TikTok? Right? So,
this is the latest iteration of legislationthat's aimed at curtailing the Chinese government's influence
over TikTok. Is not the firsttime we've seen legislation aimed at doing this,
but this most recent round is certainlythe most existential threat that this very

(00:42):
popular social media app has faced duringits brief tenure here in the United States.
And what this legislation would do is, if it passes, it would
give bite Dance, which is TikTok'sChinese parent company, nine months to sell
this app to either an American companyor a group of investors. Otherwise the

(01:03):
app would be banned from American appstores, namely the Apple App Store and
the Google Play store, essentially amountingto a complete and total ban on this
app in the United States, giventhat those are the two predominant app stores
out there, and the concerns thatlawmakers have raised here are twofold. One
is that the Chinese parent company couldconceivably be approached by China's government and use

(01:30):
TikTok to spread pro China messaging andget that messaging in front of eyes that
would otherwise not see it, theAmerican populace. The other is that this
app could potentially be used as atool for spying on American users. Lawmakers
have not put forward any evidence thatthis is actually happening on the app,
and that's an important point to highlight. These are purely hypothetical concerns at this

(01:53):
moment, but even still that didnot stop this legislation from passing through the
House over the weekend. We expectthe Senate to take it up tomorrow,
and President Biden has indicated that hewill sign it if it ever reaches his
desk. You know, it's alsointeresting about this to Mike is like,
you know, any of the otherapps, we know they're not harvesting any
information from us, So this wouldbe the only TikTok is the which I'm

(02:15):
being physicious. It's just like itmakes me laugh when I see and now
I get it. You know,bike dance being a company of Chinese origin,
blah blah blah. But at thesame time, I'm going, look,
I would be it's more breaking newsif they go there's this app,
if fill in the blank and itdoesn't take any it doesn't steal any of
your information or what have you.When we keep seeing stuff like this,

(02:38):
I don't know. I mean,does this get to the President's desk.
I haven't been following it close enough. You got all these people saying I
rely on this for my income.It's part of a stream, an income
stream, a side hustle, orof the main hustle, whatever you want
to call it. I feel likeit's just gonna be tough to completely eradicate

(02:59):
this thing. Well, you're absolutelyright that TikTokers and people who likes the
platform are pushing back on this ina pretty big way. We did see
demonstrators outside of the House of Representativesthis weekend as this legislation was being passed.
We expect them to come back tomorrowto protest in front of the Senate
as this is being passed as well, and an open letter has been sent

(03:19):
to President Biden saying if you banTikTok, we're not voting for you in
November, and that's a pretty valuabledemographic as well ahead of the twenty twenty
four election. There's also, andyou alluded to some of these, some
reason to be skeptical of this ideaabout data collection and specifically foreign influence on
TikTok. For one, as wementioned, there's no evidence that lawmakers have

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put forth that have indicated that spyingor Chinese propaganda exists on TikTok, But
even if it did, it's sortof questionable how valuable any of that data
would be. After all, ifyou're a spy or a Chinese dissident and
you're communicating via TikTok DM with yoursources, well you're not a very good
spot. And also, if welook back at other influence campaigns that have

(04:06):
taken place on social media, namelythe Russian one that took place on Facebook
and Twitter in the run up tothe twenty twenty election, those efforts were
largely aimed at sowing discord, notrallying people behind a common idea. It's
a lot easier to drive people apartthan it is to bring them together.
So the influence of those influence campaignsis largely regarded as being pretty small.

(04:29):
So many reasons to raise our eyebrowshere about some of the reasoning that lawmakers
have put forward for being concerned aboutTikTok, and all of which is to
say, these are largely hypothetical concernsat this point. So do you have
a TikTok account, Mike? Idon't. I did, but I did
not get rid of it because ofany concerns necessarily about foreign influence or data

(04:53):
collection or anything like that, thoughleaving open the possibility that it could potentially
happen. I rather got rid ofit because I didn't like how much time
I was spending on it. It'svery addictive. There's some very funny things
and good recipes and you know,fun things to do here in New York
City that I found through TikTok,But I also found that I didn't like
spending an hour on my phone beforebed every night. I'd rather use that

(05:13):
time for something else. Do youthink, though, there are there's another
app or other apps I should saythat could you could gather the things that
maybe you were getting off of TikTok. With regard to the things you just
kind of pointed out there, there'scertainly other apps that collect data on people.
In fact, most apps that youwould download onto your phone collect some
form of data, whether it beyour you know, email address or your

(05:38):
location data, and they largely usethis data to make their app function.
Right, It's not illegal to collectdata so long as that data is disclosed
and it's not being done for nefariouspurposes. And TikTok is not alone in
the type of data collection that itdoes, at least here in the United
States. Obviously, lawmakers are concernedthat that data could find its way back
to a foreign government, But interms of the actual data that you give

(06:01):
over to TikTok it it's not uniquein any particular way. And what you're
alluding to is the idea that thereare other social media companies out there that
do more data collections. Absolutely correct, Yeah, you mentioned TikTok's not alone
here, right for sure. MikeDubuski, AB senior technology reporter out of
New York. Mike, thank youvery much, appreciate you for We'll see

(06:23):
ya take care, all right.Yeah, I don't have TikTok. I
was going to get it, butsince they're going to outlaw it, I
guess I won't