Free Speech vs National Security: The TikTok Ban Debate | Panel (Ep40) - StreamLeader Report with Ross Brand

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Congress votes to ban TikTok, Willit pass the Senate, will the President
sign it? And why now?Why TikTok? What is behind all this
and what does it mean for creators? We'll talk about it next on The
stream Leader Report. Let's do ashow. It's The stream Leader Report,
live panel creators talking to creators,craw real and unscripted and sometimes they see

(00:27):
the quiet part out loud. Hereare your hosts, Claudia Santiago, Rebecca
Gunter, Rob Greenley, and RossBrand. Hey Gang, Welcome to the
stream Leader Report. I'm Ross Brand. My show is the stream Leader Report.
And joining me as always Rebecca Gunter, the peach in chief of stone

(00:48):
Fruit and Stonefruit Roll Up, Uh, Claudia Santiago from Claudiasantiago dot com.
And Rob Greenley, Hall of Famepodcaster, Podcasting tips with Rob Greenley coming
up tonight at seven o'clock. Catchthat on the stream Yard Channel. And
well, you know, we've talkeda lot about TikTok on this not because

(01:11):
most of us are creating a tonof content on TikTok, but because it's
kind of a bell weather of wherethings are going with social and some of
the issues and clearly that's where thefocus is right now. So just to
open the floor, does anybody havea thought about why TikTok and why now?

(01:34):
Well, there's a little bit ofa historical context to this. Back
in I believe it was back intwenty twenty, Donald Trump tried to do
a you know, a kickout ofTikTok and and actually got thrown out because
there was such an uproar around it, and that there was also a lot

(01:57):
of blowback that came from the Chineseside of this, because it got all
embroiled in the sanctions against China andthe trade trade kind of war that was
going on back then too. Soso this isn't the first time, and
this bill has been around for almosta year now, so they've wanted to

(02:17):
do it. I just and Iguess the bigger question is why now?
I mean, why is it comingup again? Is it just because of
our fear of China's influence? We'reseeing a bunch of it kind of happening
in our our world where we're gettingincreasingly concerned about the influence the Chinese government

(02:44):
maybe having on our country, andit there may actually be some warfare going
on that we are just not entirelyaware of that may be kind of cyber
related, maybe linked up with influencethat's going on, maybe Chinese nationals coming
across to our southern border. There'sjust you know, there's a lot of

(03:05):
confluence of things going on here thatmay have brought this to a head.
Again, So that's my setting itup here to some degree, But there's
a lot of layers to this thatwe need to pull apart today. Claudia,
your first thought on this, yeah, Well, first of all,
Rebecca won me over to TikTok.I had an account set up like years

(03:27):
ago, and honestly, like myview of TikTok before, okay before was
that everybody would just get on cameraand wiggle their butts and you know,
just too silly things and whatever,you know. And then of course I
also had my entertainer friends. Someof them were saying, whoa, my
TikTok's blowing up, and you know, then they were able to monetize and

(03:52):
YadA, YadA, YadA. Andthen comes along Rebecca, who is like
TikTok so away I went. Ithought, okay, I'm going to get
on there and I'm going to learnthe ropes and I'm still learning the ropes.
The other day, I was tryingto do a video past one minute.
I couldn't couldn't figure it out.But anyways, okay, so just
to let you know, I didget in there and started seeing what was

(04:15):
what, and I found it veryvery interesting because it is such a platform
that is really like no other.It's the capabilities of not just you're not
just posting what you're creating, andthey actually do not want you and they
will ban or strike you out ifyou're like, say you did a video

(04:35):
on Facebook or Instagram or YouTube.Even if you upload the very same thing,
they will ax you. They willlike so you have to create something
different, add to a different allthat so I found that creatively it was
such an outlet for so many entertainersbut also businesses and people that just want

(04:59):
to learn something or be up withthe news or hear This is what I
loved about it was I say lovedbecause even Canada looks like they're jumping on
board with this thing. That theywere able to not only express their voices
but creatively express their journey and processing. They were able to process out loud

(05:25):
without being dinged or you know,what I'm saying. So my take on
this as I think TikTok is oneof those at the US. This is
what's in the news right now,But even this morning in Apple News,
I saw that Canada did a backin September twenty twenty three. We didn't

(05:47):
know this. Secretly, they dida review of TikTok and that's still under
the underworks. So you know,oh Canada, you know we're back.
We're probably going to be Canada isgoing to be looking at TikTok. I

(06:10):
think this as I'm processing out loudhere, I think TikTok will be one
of the many platforms that's going tobe started to be regulated. I think
our free speech, Uh, thereis a There is the security aspect of
it, which I totally get,but I don't really know what's behind it

(06:35):
all as well. But I don'tthink TikTok's going to be the only one.
Guys, my take, Rebecca,you're a resident TikTok expert. You're
the one who really understands the rhythmand rhyme of the platform more than anyone
else. What what do you think'sgoing on or what are you hearing from

(06:58):
TikTokers oh, oh my god,what a segue are b You know,
I've got it queued up with whatTikTokers are having to say. And that
is the most meta thing ever.And I don't mean the Zuckerberg universe,
but like meta in the true senseof the word. That why not ask
the community? Okay, I amcertainly the stream leader report weekly live panel

(07:18):
show today. He's a one thirtythird standard time lover of TikTok. Do
I know the most about it?I've aged out of knowing the most about
it, my god, ask thesixteen year old. However, what I
do love about it more than anythingis this convergence of unique point of view
at any point in any time,a window onto the world with a first

(07:41):
person perspective that you may agree with, you may not agree with. It
may provoke something, it may not. But I love this convergence of multiple
different perspectives and opinion. So Ibrought a clip to the table. I've
brought this creator before they go byv They're an established media persona to spend

(08:03):
some time in the in the WhiteHouse under this kind of like TikTok media
flag of under the desk news anda quite a respected kind of voice within
the TikTok creator community of just avery I guess a broadcasting way of presenting
information. And I brought this clipbecause I think it's an excellent distillation of

(08:26):
like what's really going on or whatwhat's got TikTok provoked. So let's let's
do a clip fire away, allright, bear with me, call her
one moment please, I'm really laggingat you guys. Apologies, no word

(08:52):
play, play, go move.These are the reasons why I do not
support the bill by Congressman Gallagher,saying that this legislation is not a down
payment on their Restrict Act. Itvery much does feel like a down payment
on the Restrict Act. That's thename of Senator Mark Warners bill he used
to try and ban TikTok last year. That legislation gives broad overreach to the

(09:13):
government to both survey and censor Americancitizens online was absolutely destroyed in a bipartisan
fashion. Number two, the timelineto sell TikTok is not realistic. They
are basing it on the fact thatElon Musk bought Twitter in six months.
But what they are failing to realizeis Elon Musk bought Twitter because Twitter's shareholders
forced him to buy it. Amerger requires collaboration, and you are not

(09:35):
going to get that kind of friendlycollaboration during a forced divestiture. So by
dance would happen n till September tofind a buyer and transfer everything over.
If they can't do it in thattimeline, then they wouldn't have access to
the app anymore to update it.So Congress is effectively banning the app by
breaking it. And lastly, thereisn't an air apparent Facebook, Meta,
Twitter, Snapchat. They can't buyit because they would run into anti trust

(09:58):
issues. So that leaves with folkslike mister Wonderful going on television to say
that he wants to buy it sothat he could use one hundred and seventy
million Americans that use this app totrain AI, or Nancy Pelosi saying that
it would be great for the Americanstock market for US to own the app
instead of China. This legislation givesthe President and the FBI the ability to
identify and ban apps at their will. Please call your senator and tell them

(10:20):
to vote no. I've made avery easy script with the bullet points,
the TikTok ban has just passed theHouse. Now, now that's a very
extremely report piece of content in termsof the restrict Act and also the heir
apparent and also stock market ross.What do you think, Well, I

(10:43):
think there's several issues going on here. There is the free speech issue.
If we can ban TikTok, thenwhat's next, the slippery slope argument and
so forth. There's also the nationalsecurity issue. But I think there's other

(11:07):
things going on as well that wedon't know, and one's not being shared
with us. There certainly talk aboutuh, the impact of it on children,
there's talk about propaganda. Those thosethings aren't exclusive to TikTok. Are
they worse on TikTok? I don'tknow, but they're certainly not exclusive to

(11:30):
TikTok. And so then comes inthe issue is American tech companies not wanting
the competition unless they own it.Is the media or the news or that
government, the government wanting a monopolyon our data rather than being concerned about
our privacy. Is it really aboutuh, unifying the data from the other

(11:56):
social media apps that they're tracking aconstantly on. I don't know. On
the other hand, there are certainlyreally good arguments that TikTok is. You
know, it's a weapon of anadversary, and it's something we certainly are

(12:16):
Founding fathers when they when they wrotethe Constitution, couldn't have thought about,
you know, when they talk aboutfree speech and so forth, the ability
to have that kind of influence fromoverseas on Americans and particularly young Americans.
I think there's a lot of thingsgoing on we might as well hear from.

(12:39):
I think both presidential candidates have beencompletely muddled on this issue. They
both flip flop, they've both beena little bit hypocritical. Trump, as
you mentioned, was for banning itrob earlier and now he's he's changed his
his tune a bit. So let'ssee what he says and why he's for

(13:05):
clippers. That old clip, thisis a recent clip. I believe one
more thing from today's news, TikTok. The Republicans just voted to Republicans and
Democrats just voted to ban it.You don't think they should ban it right
now? Well, I didn't sayanything other than you have to look at
Facebook. Facebook is the enemy ofthe people. They did those lock boxes.

(13:26):
They spent five hundred million. Doyou know if you spent more than
five six hundred dollars or whatever thenumber is. If you spend one hundred
dollars more, they put you inprison for campaign violations. Right, Zuckerberg
or zucker Bucks, whatever you wantto call them, is spending the numbers
crazy. He's spending five hundred milliondollars in the last election and nothing happens

(13:52):
to him. And that money's beingpassed all over the place, especially on
the lock boxes or still called lockboxes, because they're not lock boxes, they're
all I call them open boxes.And I think that something has to be
done with Facebook. And one thingI will say, I don't want Facebook
to get bigger because I think Facebookis an equal threat and that includes with
China, because if China wants toknow anything about what Facebook knows, they're

(14:15):
going to give them the information.One more thing from Well, I mean,
that's that's another issue that he bringsup there is that most of our
companies, our big corporations, arealready in bed with China. So go
ahead, Claudia. I've just gota thought. And there's a lot of

(14:37):
power in our voices, there's alot of power in the brain that we
have, our thoughts, our processes, our experiences, our expertises. There's
a lot of power in the people'svoices, and could it be could it
be that by twenty thirty there's ase up going on to try and silence

(15:03):
the people's voices. Could it be, well, it's already been happening,
right, Yeah, that's right.I couldn't be that. This is more,
way, more than what they deemNational security is actually us, our
voices, our thoughts. Yeah,Rebecca go, I mean, I can't

(15:28):
agree with you more, Claudia,like, it's that's where I'm sus I
think that TikTok is a place inwhich dissent has a fertile breeding grounds and
information about I mean, the theclips from that are pro these like private
like gotcha clips of CEOs on thephone with their stakeholders, like bragging about

(15:54):
the record profits and corporation like corporatehr people firing you where you've got like
a phone here and you're recording theentire like conversation in which you're being fired
by like a random person you've nevermet, kind of shining a light on

(16:15):
how corporate culture is, you know, is or isn't doing the thing right
now, all of that is instantaneousand it's happening like a rapid fire.
So what the CEO thought was aprivate phone call someone recorded, and now
everyone on TikTok has heard you bragabout record profits and how much you're able
to extract from the economy. Everyoneon TikTok has heard you know, some

(16:40):
ranted a gas station in which youknow, I don't know if something happens,
like a thunder bender or whatever.And then millions of people are audience
to that conversation and that contradiction pullback the curtain on who owns like ninety
percent of the food manufacture in Americaand how that's linked to like, you

(17:02):
know, the Western biomedicine kind ofmachine of health, and how that's tied
to private equity. All of thatstuff is it's not like we've ever had
a platform for that kind of culturecriticism. You certainly have the press and
you can write about it, youcan have a podcast, et cetera.
But TikTok is like instantaneous three minutedownload, and that kind of zeitgeist is

(17:29):
very very powerful for turning public opinion. Yeah, I want to bring in
comic crusaders. Here says we asAmericans know nothing, only what they want
us to know, So I cannotassume how another country behaves based on the
massive inundation of propaganda fear mongering.Yeah. Also, I think we have

(17:52):
to question just about everything that we'rehearing about this story too, because it's
also been reported in any sources thatI've come across too, that the US
government has not provided any hard evidencethat shows TikTok shared any information with the
Chinese authorities. So it's not likethey're they're coming at us with any kind

(18:17):
of credible threat information. The onlycredible threat information is coming from our political
leaders and our media telling us thatthere's a problem here, But they're not
really giving us any evidence that therereally is any kind of connection between TikTok
and the Chinese Communist Party. Andif you look at the structure of TikTok

(18:41):
or byte Dance, it does nothave really any connection that has been able
to be identified with the Chinese CommunistParty as far as on a data sharing
or any kind of a relationship likethat. Now, granted that can easily
be hid always back doors in software, so you never really know what's going

(19:03):
on here. But I do thinkthat you have to question this because it
appears to have been a bill thathas been massively bipartisan in the House.
And when was the last bill thatwe had that was bipartisan and why is
it that we have this happen asa bipartisan bill, Because I do think

(19:30):
that this is a bill that checksthe box for many different individuals that have
an interest in the outcome here,from the intelligence security state to competitive corporations.
I know that TikTok has been rollingout a e commerce store that they're

(19:52):
using their influencers to promote, andthen here recently this week, there was
a bunch of news that came outabout a platform called which is also a
Chinese platform that they've been linking upwith this but it's been clearly identified and
they've shared data and they've shared informationaround legal structures and technology structures. That

(20:14):
Temo is a data gathering platform.It's it's kind of an e commerce really
god thing. So that news comingout with details that is now being associated
with TikTok is an interesting connection thispast week around. You know what the
motivation for this is. I thinkthat the Amazon folks are very very threatened

(20:37):
by what TikTok is doing. Soyou have to factor that in here too.
And the bipartisanship in this case isa little bit concerning, like you
said, Rob, because why whythey all? Why are all parties seem
to be coming together? Can't agreeon anything? Yeah, I think you

(21:00):
have a clip here, Rebecca.It looks like Congressman Jamal Bowman wants to
sound the alarm. He gets apun, right, very good, Dan
Gong that happenstead Yep. It's enfranchisebecause we do a horrible job of reaching
out to young voters, connecting withthem, engaging them, and listening to

(21:23):
them. TikTok is actually a platformwhere young voters have found community with each
other and they're learning a lot moreabout politics. They're learning more about their
elected officials votes. Their elected officialshave taken what we all stand for,
and they're sharing information, whether it'srelated to foreign policy, domestic policy,
childcare, education, whatever the issuesare. So they are literally building their

(21:44):
own community and building their own politicalpower. Why are we then going to
disenfranchise them even further, especially whenvoters have a tendency to vote Democrat if
we go about engaging them and doingit the right way. So have this
discussion and trying to ban it oralmost Man, it makes no sense.
At this time, I thought thatwas what his particular motivation is. Yeah,

(22:11):
can I just a little bit,yeah, okay, So in the
Civil War when when I went throughthat, okay, with communism, they
did silence the people's voices temporarily throughthat time. Uh. And also what
they were feeding to the public wasthe propaganda. So the television channels there

(22:33):
was only one channel, and itwas just their propaganda. So that's all
that the people were able to consume, okay. And there was never stories
of what was actually really going onat the stadium or where they were dropping
people into the ocean. But noneof that, Okay. All we knew
was it was very dangerous to beout on the streets. And so not

(22:56):
only did they feed their own agenda, but also if you, in any
way, shape or form spoke outyour opinion to the new regime that took
over, you were killed or yourfamily was killed. This is not anything
new. You know, we livein North America and Canada. They haven't

(23:21):
done this stuff yet. But thisis nothing new under the sun. It's
been going on throughout history. Whereare we prepared and where are we naive
to the fact that this might bethe direction we are heading and what happens
to us as creatives, as businessowners, entrepreneurs if all of a sudden,

(23:48):
we can't even do this broadcast,we cannot speak our minds, they
shut down the platforms, or likethey're doing in China where they survey all
what you're doing online and they giveyou no loan for a home, you
can't buy a car, you losejob, social credit score. Yeah,
exactly, And that's very real andright now people people are going to be

(24:14):
super naive to think that the governmentand at headquarters they cannot tap into absolutely
everything we're talking about, even evenin DMS, so they have access to
all that. Just saying not tostill fear. I'm just I'm the well
reality guys. Well, Claudia issomebody who's been there, done that and

(24:36):
seen the riding on the wall.You had a magic wand right now,
what would you do for this situation? Well, you know what I look
at I look at my family.Okay. Part of part of the thing
that Claudia Santago suffered was I grewup in Canada not knowing a soul.
Initially all a family back there inthe homeland fighting for their lives. Just

(25:00):
say alive. We could not evensend letters and express our feelings. Okay.
What I learned from them was sticktogether. Do not believe everything that's
thrown at you. Make sure notthat you're living in fear and and and
and uh how should I say suspicionall the time. But we have a

(25:22):
great discerner in us. We havewe have what we one of my mentors
says a knower. Okay, weknow bullshit it's being thrown out to us.
Okay, use your discernment, lookat look at what's really going on.
Stick together, and you know what, We've got the power to create.
That's what my what that my familydid. Many many in those types

(25:48):
of countries are holding two three fourjobs. Uh. This is not heard
of ab up here in Canada andthe US, but this has been going
on in countries. I mean Ilook at people over in Belarus and stuff
that uh they you know they are. That's the other thing. In those
countries, they're capped as to theamount of money they can make. Why

(26:12):
because the government doesn't want them beingmore powerful. So so what would I
say, stick together used as discernment, use your common sense, create,
create, work hard, stay focused. Well, that's one of the things
that you know now when I askmy uncles, like, how did you
survive this? How did you?They had to really develop a strong mindset

(26:37):
to stay focused, and you doget into survival mode. It's not even
it's not even fighting for their prespeech. It's like, how are we
going to eat? How are wegoing to feed these kids? We have
no electricity, we have no power. Anyways, I'll shut up now,
but yeah, we're going back tobare bones. It's like the pioneers.
They had to survive, they hadto do use everything within them to plow

(27:02):
new territory new ground. And Ithink that's what we're going to be doing.
We're going to be plowing new territorynew ground with technology, with everything
that we're facing, I don't thinkwe're going to be riding the same old
horse for years to go. There'salso another aspect of this bill that isn't
being talked about a lot too,is that TikTok would be prohibited from app

(27:26):
storers such as those offered by Appleand Google, as well as web hosting
services until the divestiture occurs and thissets a precedent of the US government cracking
down on websites as well that islinked up with some social media related activities

(27:49):
or speech or those kind of things. As really it uses the term kind
of was it kind of what theterm that they use foreign adversary, But
I think that there's clauses in thereand I don't have it right in front
of me. That actually opens thatup a little bit. It doesn't have

(28:11):
to be a foreign adversary. Butreally the concern is is that, you
know, one of the aspects ofthe Internet right now has been that the
web has not been really censored atthe same level, or the website services
companies haven't been targeted yet, butthis may open the door towards that happening.

(28:34):
And what other apps might we deemas a threat to our country?
Right? Is x or Twitter goingto be deemed as a threat to the
country and Elon's going to be targeted? Is that? Who's going to be
next on this? We saw thefirst step to that, right yeah,
AOC and Congress said he changed thealgorithm and twenty twenty two and that's election,

(29:03):
which is kind of ironic given thefact that like all the tampering that
went on before he bought it,and all the security state involvement and censorship
and so forth. But in otherwords, once you open the door to
this, the arguments can be madein all sorts of directions and you don't
know where it goes. And Imean, I'm in the middle on this

(29:29):
issue. I don't have a strongsense either way. I see all the
sort of conspiracy thinking that goes intowhy we shouldn't ban it, and I
think some of that thinking isn't reallyconspiracy. I think there's a lot fishy
stuff going on. I also understandwhere some people are coming from in terms

(29:53):
of banning it. Let's just hearfrom Senator Josh Holly, who's kind kind
of gives the standard majority view,even though we don't know what the majority
is in the Senate, but hekind of reflects the House, the House
view on things. What needs tohappen here is there needs to be a

(30:15):
firewall between TikTok and Beijing, becausethe whole deal is all the information TikTok
gets from Americans is available to theChinese Communist Party. That's the problem.
That's why it's a security threat,That's why they want to get into our
phones so they can get this informationon us. We need to put up
a firewall. If they would sellTikTok, that's fine. If they won't
sell them, then we're gonna haveto ban it. Where's the evidence of

(30:37):
that? That's the question I havefor him. Well, I think some
people feel like they don't necessarily haveto be doing it at the moment.
But what Chinese company is going tosay no? If the government comes knocking
on the door and says, hey, we need this, do you want
to disappear? Do you wanna doyou want to help us out put the

(31:00):
data we need? That's what needsto be investigated because everything I've read is
that TikTok is a wholly solely ownedand operated US company, so it it
originated out of China. So butit's it's doesn't it doesn't have any legal

(31:21):
ties that have been identified to theChinese, So it's it could be a
little bit of a red herring herethat they're using this, But you know,
it's it's possible that data sharing cancan happen. I mean back doors
have existed. I mean just theTwitter files were an example of that.
That's what happened to Twitter, isthat there was a back door to the

(31:44):
National Security State. Certainly that couldthat could be the case with TikTok or
Timu or any of these right,right, and and and to be entirely
frank about it, is that thisis a little bit of a pot calling
the kettle black is is. Ibelieve that the US government is doing all
these things, with all these othersocial apps to us already. So this

(32:07):
is like being worried about Chinese CommunistParty. Well, at the same time,
they're doing the same thing to usfor their benefit. So it's it's
really kind of concerning. This isa way to distract attention probably from what
the US government is doing to us. So, Rebecca, you got another
clip, Rebecca Year, I'm mute. Sorry, I didn't mean too to

(32:37):
throw that at you so quickly.Sorry, keep this for the prest I
know. I'm sorry about that.I apologize. Okay. Yeah, we
have the CEO of TikTok. Ithought it would be interesting get you what

(33:00):
the CEO of TikTok has to say. All right, we're mited up and
write the app. Hi everyone,the show here. Just wanted to share
some thoughts with our US users aboutthe disappointing vote in the House of Representatives.
There has been a lot of misinformationand I hope to clarify some things.
First, thank you to our incrediblecommunity. You are what makes TikTok

(33:22):
so special. Thank you for makingyour voices heard. Over the last few
years, we have invested to keepyour data safe and our platform free from
outside manipulation. We have committed thatwe will continue to do so. This
legislation, if signed in the law, will lead to a ban of TikTok
in the United States. Even thebill sponsors admit that that's their goal.

(33:42):
This bill gives more power to ahandful of other social media companies. It
will also take billions of dollars outof the pockets of creators and small businesses.
It will put more than three hundredthousand American jobs at risk, and
it will take away your TikTok.We know how important tikto is to all
of you. It is given ourone hundred and seventy million users a platform

(34:05):
to freely express themselves, and it'sempowered more than seven million businesses in the
United States. Our platform matters tothe small business owners who rely on TikTok
to make ends meet, to theteachers who inspire millions of students to learn,
and to everyone who discovers and findsjoy on TikTok. We will not
stop fighting and advocating for you.We will continue to do all we can,

(34:28):
including exercising our legal rights, toprotect this amazing platform that we have
built with you. We believe wecan overcome this together. I encourage you
to keep sharing your stories. Sharethem with your friends, share them with
your family, share them with thesenators. Protect your constitutional rights, make
your voices heard. Love you all. I'm not surprising the messaging there for

(34:55):
sure, but I thought it was. I thought it would be a interesting
to hear from him what the hearttake of I guess I would miss if
TikTok went away. I mean heput it in a positive vein, which
is, you know your teachers areinspiring and stuff. Well, it also
has given us a look into someof the crazy that goes on in our
classrooms and schools culture. Yeah,from from things the teachers are saying,

(35:23):
to some of the violence in schoolsand different things that you just might not
have been aware of if if peopleweren't silly enough to be recording themselves doing
all sorts of saying all sorts ofstupid things, and not just kids,
but you know, the teachers themselvesin many cases put the content up there

(35:45):
and we get a window into that. Who do we have next, Rebecca?
This next clip is a creator who'sI think this is germane to our
show here because it's really about likewhere are where a creator is going to
go when TikTok goes away? I'msorry, I'm so laggy. Sorry,

(36:15):
guys talks amongst yourselves. I justwant to say thank you to all of
those that are watching online live.I've been jumping around from YouTube to LinkedIn
to Facebook. I haven't checked Twitteryet, but I see a whole bunch
of you there and some awesome commentsas well. In sights. Yeah,

(36:37):
I want to say thanks everybody's watchingon X because last week and this week
we've had, you know, apretty big turnout from X in comparison to
the past and comparison to other platforms. So thank you to everyone on on

(36:58):
X who's been joining us. SorryI called it Twitter, I'm ad X
what a beautiful way to fill thattime. Alright, ready we're all tucketspand
in the US where do you thinkeveryone's going? I can only think of
one place, and in Instagram that'sa no go. I think as a

(37:19):
community on TikTok, we're all like, no, Mark Zuckerberg is going down,
So that leaves us one or twoplaces. Twitter, not many people
are going to go on there becausethere's too much reading to do. I'm
not joking. Someone said that tome. My Space would be great,
but they'd have to make an announcementthat they're doing something really new, really
quick right now. So that leavesus YouTube shorts. That's where everyone's me

(37:44):
going. That's where are we goingto follow me over there? Thanks think
it's Spand in the US, wheredo you think everyone's going? True?
Where are we all going? Iseverybody going? Where's everybody from TikTok gonna
go? If? Oh, what'syour better questions? What your creators who
have made TikTok an important part oftheir outreach, Where should they be?

(38:06):
What should they be doing now incase this happens. That's the closest algorithm,
That's what I'd like to know.One of the differences. Yeah,
keep in mind too, that allthose companies Google, Facebook have very close
security state related relationships with the federalgovernment. So there is an interest in

(38:30):
driving people to out of TikTok intothose other platforms. And this fellow raises
a very good point is that whereare those users going to go. They're
going to go to the platforms thathave those security state relationships already. So

(38:52):
Twitter is a little bit of theoutlier there, right. That's why I
speculate that they're probably next on thetarget list. M h. And who
knows why Zuckerberg set up threads.You never know what he's working. When
Twitter goes down, that's the onlyplace the next Yeah, I mean,

(39:15):
Zuckerberg's gotta I'm Zuckerberg Musk has gotto be in the crosshairs because he went
after the security stayed and he exposedwhat they were doing there. Ye boy,
that would be some kind of fight. Can I Can I bring us
back to Canada for a minute?Absolutely forever? Oh I got that right.

(39:37):
Anyways, here I'm nice and closeto Canada. That's my playing hat
that I were on stage when I'mtalking about Canada. All right. So
this morning I found on Apple Newsand I was like, what say what
because all of this is so focusedon the US, and it says the
federal government reveals it ordered a nationalsecurity review on TikTok in September, and

(40:00):
it was a hush hush thing,says Ottawa. The federal liberals order national
security review of popular video app TikTokin September twenty twenty three, but did
not disclose it publicly. This isstill an ongoing case. We can't comment
further because of the confidentiality provisions inthe Investment Canada Act. What is that

(40:22):
that spoke sometime right just like okay, the revelation comes after the US House
Representative past the bill on Wednesday toband TikTok blah blah blah. So they're
still doing their investigation in Canada now. In Canada, we can't monetize TikTok.
I don't know if you guys knewthat. That's another thing. Yeah,

(40:45):
we can't monetize it now. What'sinteresting though, is that this review
has been going on for some timehere, and so you know, Canada
might might be passing something as well. If the u US is you see
what I'm saying, it's huge.Well, they're all working together. I

(41:06):
mean, the National Security State workswith most of the countries of the world.
Right, that are on their side, so right, yeah, yeah,
that's the key words that are ontheir side. Yeah right, yeah,
right, yeah, and I thinkItallly just I don't know, I
forget when it happened, but it'lllyfind three different divisions of TikTok or something

(41:31):
like that, pretty severely over whatit said. We're violations. Where those
violations I'm looking for it on thespot? Can you can you put your
reference up there in MLS style inthe comments now, Rebecca, I don't
know if you've seen this, butthere's videos on TikTok coaching people on TikTok,

(41:58):
creators on TikTok how to spot ifyou're actually on a fake TikTok app?
What have you seen that? No, girl, Oh yeah, you're
bringing you're bringing some some spicy Canadianflavor, whole other battle of wax.

(42:19):
Yeah, I've heard it a fewtimes now, like a mirror site or
something. Yeah. Yeah. Andso they're literally showing you that when you
post something, you should have allthese options to edit your videos to add
different things, and if you're missingcertain things, they're telling you that's a
fake TikTok site. How what's thathappening through the app on your phone question

(42:45):
mark. I don't know, andso I hadn't even thought of that because
usually when you go into Apple,you you know, the app store,
and you start seeing you know,Facebook, TikTok, Instagram. You download
those apps because you see the logoand you think that's the real thing.

(43:07):
So what have we got coming now? The count counterfeit apps. I'm gonna
be holding my app up to thelight to save its water mark, right,
But you know, they were showing, they were literally showing fake TikTok
apps and what to watch for incase that you've downloaded something like that or

(43:28):
you're on that. I thought,wow, and it looked it looked the
same, you guys. It reallydid accept if you if you clicked on
certain things. It was missing certaintypes of things that you can do on
TikTok. All right, you askedRebecca, here it is. It'll be
fine. TikTok eleven million for failingto protect line protect March fourteen, twenty

(43:54):
twenty four, So just a fewdays ago, No, that's today topic.
Italy's competition authorities find TikTok ten millioneuros eleven million US for failing to
control the spread of content that hadsaid threatened the safety of minors and other

(44:17):
vulnerable people. The Anti Trust AgencyAGCM said Thursday the TikTok, which is
owned by China's Bike Dance, hadfailed to take into account the specific vulnerabilities
of adolescents using its platform, suchas a tendency toward copying group behaviors.
The watchdog announced and investigation into TikTok'scontent moderation practices last March. In a

(44:42):
statement Thursday, it said the videosharing platform has not taken adequate measures to
avoid the spread of harmful content,adding that its algorithms meant such content could
be quote systematically reper proposed to users. An example of herheim full content mentioned
by AGCM is what is known asthe French scar trend, which involves TikTok

(45:07):
users pinching their own cheeks to leavea lasting bruise. A TikTok spokesperson told
CNN that it disagreed with the decision. The so called French scar content averaged
just one hundred daily searches in Italyprior to the announcement last year, and
we long ago restricted visibility of thiscontent. It goes on say TikTok has

(45:30):
been in the crosshairs of European regulatorsfor some time and has already faced fines
totally hundreds of millions of dollars.The Irish Data Protection Commission, which oversees
TikTok's activities across the European Union,ordered the platform in September to pay three
hundred and seventy six million in fines, arguing that it failed to protect children.

(45:52):
The regulator found that newly created profilesof children were set to public by
default, meaning anybody on the Internetcould view them. And so there you
have it. I'm sure, I'msure the Italian government doesn't have any problems
with with the same happening on TikTokeither, right, crazy, Yeah,

(46:22):
So it's it's going to be manymonths before, even if it passes the
Senate, it's going to be Ithink up to six months before we actually
see anything happen. And by then, the probably the presidential election will have
happened and we'll see, you know, if there's a new administration that comes
in, is the policy on TikTokgoing to change or not? Based on

(46:44):
what Donald Trump just said. Ifhe does get re elected or put back
into office, the whole thing maybe you know, done deal by then,
or maybe it's gets pulled back again. Yeah, I thought point from
under the dest News was very interestingabout may not be a band, but
we're going to break it and essentiallydoing the same thing. Well, it's

(47:07):
either a sale or a ban,one of the two. And the first
option that's offered is a sale.And I know that there's been a variety
of companies that have already issued lettersto TikTok offering to purchase them, and
one of them was the parent companyof Rumble. So when I told the
money but that's I told my sixteenyear old, they were like, can

(47:29):
Rumble afford that? Hey, whydon't you put that in the studio and
you know, bring back vine.Well that's another another what most platforms that
may be targeted after if this billpasses as well as Rumble, I will

(47:50):
come back. Yeah, that's itlab right, the greatest of all social
media platforms can be so heavy andhonestly even for our viewers, you know,
and it can instill such fear andlike I said earlier in that question,
Rebecca asked me, you know howyou know what would be a tip?

(48:12):
You know what my family loves tolaugh. They when we get together,
they do skits, they tell jokes, they you know, and that's
a strength that we all have.So I just want to encourage everybody in
that as well. Don't forget yourhumanity and don't forget you're not dead yet
and we still got a lot withinus to create. And but yeah,

(48:34):
through all this heavy stuff, youknow, I'm not trying to minimize it.
It is very real in the directionthat it seems like we're heading.
I don't think TikTok's going to bethe only one that's going to land on
the chopping block, so to speakto to you know that they're going to
be reviewing, not just in theUS, but globally. But yeah,

(48:55):
I just want to help everybody getback to their humanity too, because there's
so much strength within us, andand laughter is one of them. That's
a beautiful, beautiful point. AndI think I hear the rumblings of a
Stream Leader Report comedy showy show.Oh yeah. On the cruise, longtime

(49:15):
fans of the Stream Leader Report willremember that we're doing a world cruise during
the Santiago Family I am there,you guys. You know, it's sort
of like they have to sell itin six months. First of all,
how do you get fair market priceor something when everybody knows you have to

(49:38):
sell it or else? Right,unless there's a lot of competition to buy
it, which if it's really profitable, there may well be. But that's
a lot of that's a short windowwith a lot of pressure and no option
of going you know what, ifyou're not willing to pay this, I'm

(49:59):
backing out. It's like sell itor loose And and V's point, I
think of a margin like that requireor a transfer power, requires collaboration.
Yeah. Yeah, it depends onwho buys it. I guess the degree
that they have to do integration withanother company or multiple companies. Could it

(50:22):
be that the government wants sharers inthese companies. Could it be there there's
a new system being put together whereuh, they're part owners. Hey,
Rod, that's that's what I said, called show me, show me all
the stock, show me all thestock that the yes votes had in Meta's

(50:45):
hell right. Well, you know, one of the things that came up
in my mind as I was thinkingabout this is that if it is possible
that if this bill does pass theSenate and it gets signed, which Biden
has already said he's going to signthe bill of it makes it past the
Senate is one of the things thatElon has not done is disclose the spectrum

(51:09):
of owners that he has that investedpart of that forty four billion that he
had to pay for it. Becausehe does have a list. I think
it's like a it's a pretty longlist of people that put capital into that
could be if they happened to beconsidered to be people that have linkages with

(51:29):
a foreign adversary, right that theycould apply this law to Twitter. But
we don't really know the ownership listof x or Twitter right now. Sure
Elon owns a big chunk of it, but where the other owners and this
foreign adversary law could be applied tothat if some group of it, So

(51:52):
let's say, you know, Russiainvestors or whatever put money into to Twitter,
then that could be identified as aforeign adversary rights in bed with who
hey. I mean, there's alot of money in the US, but
there's a heck of a lot ofmore money outside right wanting to invest here.

(52:16):
And China's doing that too. They'rebuying up farmland, they're they're buying
companies. China's been actively involved inthe US economically for decades, so there
isn't really anything new here that's goingon. I just think that there's a
lot of spin up around and toysthat are more concerning than what video clips

(52:37):
people are watching, perhaps like ifthey're making our medicine, if they are
buying up farmland near I would say, those are more your sites and things
like that. It's like, andalso just our own food supply and to
lose control of our food supply.Why aren't we concerned about those things?

(52:59):
But we're all of a sudden concernedabout information or military age men from China
crossing from you coming up, whichis different than the rest of the migrant
flow, where it's you know,clearly an antagonistic group rather than a you

(53:20):
know, hey, let me seeif I can get away with getting to
America. This is like we're onthe mission. Well, it's been called
out by multiple people that I've heardthat are actually down in South America that
has said that the Chinese have theirown migration pathway, with their own migrant
centers, their own pathways, andtheir own assistance for making it to the

(53:42):
US border, right and unlike thepeople from the Like all the rest of
the world, generally different people willtalk to media and are more open.
Not in the case of those migrantsfrom China. They're very it's organized sture,
like we really don't want any spotlighton what we're doing, right,

(54:05):
you know. I toured through differentcountries in in South America. I have
Wow, it is so interesting tosee Chinese people speaking Spanish. It is
like really really kind of cool.And I mean yeah, and I mean
they are hard workers and very innovativeand they're setting up small stores, larger

(54:30):
stores all over. It's really quitesomething the migration out that way. And
years years ago there was a hugemigration from Germany and Italy. I mean
when you go into Argentina, Imean they are blonde, green eyes.
They you know, they're speaking Spanish, but they look like Italians. And

(54:52):
it's really quite something, you know, by very resourceful people and beautiful culture.
Yeah. In New York City alot there are a lot of Cuban
restaurants that are actually Chinese Cuban restaurantswhere they serve a mix of traditional Cuban
food and westernized Chinese food. Butit's it's just interesting because there's a most

(55:20):
people don't think of that, butthere is quite a strong population for me,
God in Cuba. I want tosorry, I want to rope a
via Low Maine. I'm thinking aboutall the all the crossover food. You
know, there's an article out andI've heard this talked about too that they're

(55:43):
the real concern about this too isdisinformation. But I don't know about each
one of you your experience with TikTok. Have you experienced any political misinformation on
TikTok? I haven't really experienced that, So if they're using that as a
reason to uh to do this,I'm not sure it's valid. I don't

(56:07):
know. I mean, if youguys felt like there was political misinformation in
there, I mean I wouldn't saymisinformation, but I would say it's incendiary
information. There's a lot, there'sa lot. There's a lot about micro
communities and how to like tap outof capitalism, And I feel like that

(56:28):
that's probably one of the areas thatfolks would point to and be like ah,
because there's just a lot of likeprotesting. There's a big Kellogg's protest
happening right now that started on TikTok. How to grow your own food,
how to barter, how to stoppingdepending on fossil fuels, how to do

(56:50):
right. Yeah, I mean,I wouldn't say it's misinformation, but I
would say it it's a it's analternative to capitalism, which is definitely not
what the social media platforms want toor self sufficiency is another thing too that
takes people out of the system.Out of the system, I could prob
I could kiss you right now.Out of the system is like the theme

(57:13):
out of You don't need to goto a big university to learn things.
I'll teach you right now. I'ma PhD in economics. You don't have
to go to a you don't haveto you don't have to go to the
grocery store. I'll teach you howto grow onions from the onion tops in
your garden. You don't have tobuy all kinds of new, you know,
clothes. I'll show you how tosew your own. There's such a

(57:36):
tap out, a tune in,turn on, tune in, drop out
moment. I think you really hitthe nail lad of opting out of systems.
And this is exactly what when Isaid when communism hit hit my homeland.
This is exactly what my aunts anduncles and growling grum has said,

(57:57):
is there was they were all sharing. Like if somebody had a few baby
chickis, they all shared the chicken. The little baby chickis to grow chickens
so that they would have eggs,they would have protein to eat when there
was no food. So you know, this is the kind of self sufficiency
almost. Like I said, likebeing a pioneer, I feel that in

(58:21):
this new move sort of thing that'shappening, we are going to have to
think like pioneers. And I thinkthat I'm not downplaying the China thing and
the national security thing, but Ireally think that part of their concern of
national security is us. It's ourvoice, it's our power to create,

(58:42):
it's our power to be something sothat we cannot be completely controlled. You
know, there may come a timeand age where it's free speech is squashed,
but we might even be told whatto say. Like you know when
they take prisoners captive and they throwthem on camera and they tell them what

(59:02):
to say in order for them tosurvive, they have to say what they're
being told to say. Just throwingit out there. Yeah, and it's
a Toctor. Tauchi agrees doctor Attachingknows media, tech, media VOP culture
better than anybody, so if youget an agreement from her, it means

(59:23):
you're right on the target. Yeah. What's tough about it, though,
is that you know, all ofus are in this very difficult situation because
if you pull out of the system, you're not going to be informed about
what the system is imposing on ourworld and you're not going to be able
to have an influence on it.Right, So the more people pull out

(59:43):
of the system, that may thegovernment may lose control, but you,
as an individual having an impact onwhat the system is, you're you're basically
removing yourself from having influence over thatas well. And that's the difficult place
that all of us are inc Asalways said, don't run away. We
didn't run away from it. Weknew what was going on, but we

(01:00:07):
pulled together and we reinvented, weinnovated. And in that age, this
was years back, they weren't theirvoices, weren't just silence. They were
told what to say and if theydid not say those things, they were
killed. Okay, So they weregoing through that years ago, and they

(01:00:30):
what they told me is they hadto in order to survive, abide by
the rules and almost play stupid ina way, like you know, like
when a dog's in danger, theylay down and play dead, right to
survive. Okay, in some waysthey had to do that. They were
still informed, but they were insurvival mode. And there's wisdom to that.

(01:00:53):
Like, I totally agree with that, Rob, there's wisdom, don't.
I Mean, some people might go, oh, I'm just getting away
from it all. It's I'm goingto go out in the woods and unplug,
right, Yeah, yeah, you'dhave to have really some some skill
set that most people don't have todo that, right, that won't be

(01:01:15):
imposed on all all. Well,it's a very difficult thing to do.
I think a lot of people glamorizeit as something that's that's they would love
to aspire to do, is justunplug and pull out of the kind of
electronic world that we're in now.But you know, it's not as easy
as you think it is. Andthat's kind of what our you know,

(01:01:37):
our leaders are counting on, isthat people don't have those skills anymore,
and they're dependent on the electronic infrastructurethat that we have now. And technology
is giving them a lot of weaponsand tools for against people as well as

(01:01:58):
adversaries. So yeah, I mean, one thing that totalitarian governments have always
been able to do is you cankeep the people in line and shut off
the electricity from time to time,shut down the grid and ration that and
now you've got a really subservient population. And I mean we saw with lockdowns

(01:02:20):
during COVID people went along and youknow, the trusted the government and so
forth. What would happen if thegovernment took the next step and said,
if you don't stay home, we'regonna we're gonna make it dark in your
area. We're gonna we're gonna disconnectyou. Well, I think this has

(01:02:42):
happened in California. They had rollingblackouts over the last couple of years that
have gone on during the summer months. I don't know if that's just because
we have a horrible grid system,but there could be other reasons. And
was and was the Facebook Instagram blackoutreally a black hoot? Right? Yeah?

(01:03:07):
On on Facebook says, doesn't itall speak too much larger picture of
uh distrust by the government, bythe people for the government, And it
does. I think. I thinkthere's an element. There's a huge element
in how well in the media too. We're coming to this. I think
you're hearing it in everybody what everybody'ssaying. My only my. The reason

(01:03:34):
why I'm kind of in not totallyon one side or the other is because
I don't dress the international organizations oryou know, the Chinese government or most
other governments. I trust them evenless than I trust hard government. So
it's it's yeah, I mean,it's like I think all experts and you

(01:03:58):
know, all I don't know ininstitutions and you know, sources of authority
have lost a lot of credibility overthe last several years, and certainly at
home. That's true, but itdoesn't necessarily mean that I'm buying an exact
moral equivalence either with you know,other governments and other international institutions. The

(01:04:26):
who isn't looking out for me either, just because I'm not happy with you
know, American medical care, let'ssay. Or you know, I love
this show. I love that wecan talk so openley. You know,
I've never been a mom, andyou guys know part of that story.
But I have a lot of youngergeneration peoples around me, male and female

(01:04:51):
that they're seeing some of this goingdown and they're going like, what is
the hope for us? Like whatthe heck? Like, you know,
should I be quitting my job?Should I not go to school? Should
I not go to college? ShouldI not create a business? Because it
sounds like I'm gonna have to builda bunker and hide, you know.

(01:05:13):
So my heart is in And thisis what also I love this show is
because we can talk about this.I can say, hey, here's a
link, go check it out.There's some people really with a lot of
expertise and experience, and we're talkingabout this stuff. So I just want
to throw out hope to people outthere in this younger generation that one key

(01:05:36):
is not to run away from it. Be in the media, be get
in the tech, get in thereand educate yourselves, empower yourselves, get
around people that are thinking, anddevelop your own Like for some of us
coaches, we've got to help thisyounger generation develop ways that they can think

(01:05:59):
for them selves, you know,and you got to keep living. I
mean, none of nobody knows howmuch time they have on this planet.
So you know, it's sort ofthe Yes, there are all sorts of
threats out there, but the hystericsshouldn't take you, you know, shouldn't

(01:06:20):
take over to where you're still notliving and loving and you know, growing
and doing things because we don't knowhow long we have and we don't know
when the end is going to come. So you know, it's just part
of who we are. So someof these problems may end up getting solved,
These things may end up working themselvesout, and you know, generations

(01:06:45):
that come might not have to facethe challenges we think we're going to face.
So you know, one of thethings I do is as I am
entertainer, That's one of the thingsI do. And I love, love,
love getting on a live stage.Why because people are bombarded with this
kind of stuf up all week,all year, and it's heavy, and
it's hard and sometimes feels hopeless.But when we get face to face and

(01:07:08):
I can bring joy and and andbring uh, how should I say,
inspire that part of humanity that weneed we need to be creative, We
need to inspire that. And Ilove that it doesn't require me being online

(01:07:28):
on face to face on stage,but it also gives me an outlet to
really encourage people that we are human. Learn how to paint if you don't
even have a voice sing anyway,Uh, that joy is for you.
That those are the kinds of things. And again going back to Rebecca's question
that some of the things that myuncles and my family did through all the

(01:07:49):
Communists regime is Uh, doesn't matterif you have a good voice sing anyway,
you know what, have fun,you know, paint, throw some
stuff on a canvas, create,make something out of wood. Anyways.
Just want to encourage that younger generationbecause I do know they watch this show

(01:08:11):
and I do want to tell youguys that it's not hopeless and to keep
moving forward. But don't put yourhead in the sound. Don't run away
one of the worst things you cando. That's a great message, Yeah,
exactly, leaving us punch it up. I think we should wrap it
up on that note, because that'sthat's beautiful. Claudia and this is the

(01:08:33):
stream Leader Report Live panel. Weare here just about every Thursday at one
thirty pm Eastern on Thursdays, whichis Thursdays and for Rob Greenley Hall of
Fame podcast, International recording artists,Claudia Santiago and Peach in Chief at Stone

(01:08:57):
Fruit, Rebecca Gunter oss Brand.This has been the Stream Leader Report Live
panel. We'll see you again soonon another episode of The Stream Leader Report.
Take care of U.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Free Speech vs National Security: The TikTok Ban Debate | Panel (Ep40)