00:00:57.080Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:06.040If you are against misinformation and hate speech, you know, you got to be against it on all platforms and not just on TikTok.
00:01:19.800There are no girls on the internet as a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:01:27.900I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:01:33.160This week, President Biden said that he would sign legislation into law banning TikTok if Congress passes it.
00:01:40.020This comes after legislation that would force TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance right now, to sell to an American owner, passed a big vote last week.
00:01:48.760The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted unanimously to pass the bill, meaning TikTok is one step closer to being essentially banned in the United States.
00:01:57.580Last year, after TikTok CEO Sho Zichu went before a congressional hearing to defend the platform, popular TikToker and misinformation researcher Abby Richards and I discussed what a ban would mean for marginalized communities.
00:02:10.160With the platform being one step closer to being banned in the U.S., it is really important to understand what this means for our media landscape and for marginalized people.
00:02:20.040Now, y'all know I love TikTok, but I also know that like any other social media app, it is not without its issues.
00:02:27.020TikTok disinformation researcher and friend of the show, Abby Richards, was one of the first people calling out TikTok for the way that myths and disinformation and hate speech spreads on the app.
00:02:36.960But for all of her criticisms of TikTok, Abby still says that banning the platform is not the right move.
00:02:43.680In a recent op-ed for Newsweek that you can read in the show notes, Abby explained why she thinks banning TikTok will ultimately hurt marginalized communities.
00:02:51.840I caught up with Abby right after we both watched the hearing.
00:02:56.660Abby Richards, friend of the show, how are you?
00:03:00.260I am angry, Bridget. I am an infuriated girl right now.
00:03:08.320As someone who has really built a lot of your career, not just on TikTok, but like calling out TikTok for the ways that it can spread misinformation and hate speech, what has it been like to watch elected officials talk about banning it?
00:03:22.440it's been infuriating because they're getting it all wrong like i have literally built my career
00:03:29.140criticizing tiktok i will be the first to tell you about like the copious amounts of misinformation
00:03:34.800and hate speech extremism harassment that happened on that app but to then try and ban it without
00:03:42.020any evidence that it is a national security threat whatsoever um and just using like fear
00:03:50.160mongering and pointing to other pieces of misinformation that I have tried to debunk
00:03:55.660about TikTok like that and this is like the types of misinformation that emerges off the platform
00:04:00.560so if you were watching the hearing yesterday you would have seen a lot of our congressmen and women
00:04:08.280pointing to TikTok challenges that are causing children tons of harm and I have spent so many
00:04:15.480like countless hours debunking these exact like moral panics around these challenges0.92
00:04:20.600where essentially adults try and blame the stupid things that kids do on the newest technology we
00:04:28.380see it over and over and over again but the fact that you know that's being used to justify the0.84
00:04:34.800banning of this app too is infuriating and I'm deeply concerned about the what the consequences
00:04:43.120will be of banning an app that 150 million Americans use. So you brought up something
00:04:48.560really interesting. I know that these like so-called like deadly challenges was a big part
00:04:53.900of the hearings. And something that, I mean, I almost hate to ask this question, but I feel like
00:04:57.900it's an important context of the conversation. That is like great news for Facebook. They're
00:05:03.360like, oh, our strategy is winning. Like our strategy to turn the public and of course elected
00:05:09.120officials against TikTok and make them think that it's this place where all these deadly
00:05:14.080challenges emerge, even though at least some of those challenges actually emerged on Facebook,
00:05:18.720if you really want to get into the nitty gritty. So did you see in the hearings the ways that
00:05:24.160fear-mongering, just sort of writ large about technology, was taking center stage in these
00:05:30.060hearings? It's almost like they're placing this fear that they have of new and emerging technologies
00:05:35.700and how young people use them and just placing it on one singular app.
00:05:40.800So rather than actually dealing with the consequences of this rapidly changing society
00:05:47.580because of the expansion of technology on a monthly basis,
00:05:51.960we just want to pin all of our anxiety on one app and cross our fingers
00:05:57.480that if we just ban this one app, it'll all go away.
00:06:00.520And so I think we see that a lot with the challenges and the steam that they pick up among people who are not on the platform in particular.
00:06:10.840We know that it was the Washington Post that reported that there was a marketing group that was working with Meta to place op-eds about fear-mongering about TikTok.
00:06:29.240so that's something that we have seen happen before and it certainly seems like this is a
00:06:35.580big win for meta if you are on tiktok at all um you are probably seeing this widespread popularity
00:06:44.380of almost conspiratorial language about uh where people are blaming the ban on meta and saying
00:06:56.060that like Meta is lobbying and Google too, to some extent, blaming it, but yeah, blaming it on
00:07:00.720Meta and Google for lobbying, uh, Congress people and encouraging them to ban their biggest
00:07:06.260competition. I don't know how much truth there is to that. Cause I think that there is a lot
00:07:10.480of geopolitics there too. And it seems like the U S government is, you know, very interested in
00:07:15.840like splitting the internet as much as possible right now. Um, so it's, it's hard to say if it's
00:07:22.540like one cause versus another, but this does definitely look like a big win for Meta.
00:07:28.680And they used rhetoric that Meta has also pushed before.
00:07:52.540So let's, okay, well, we'll start here. When you consider a, like, institutional media,
00:07:59.100legacy media, so New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN, they are top-down
00:08:07.060information systems, which means that these newsrooms essentially look at all of the news
00:08:13.220and then decide what is newsworthy and then disseminate it to their audience. TikTok is
00:08:18.560much more of a bottom-up information system, which means that anyone can post basically anything
00:08:24.120that they want, and then the algorithm is working with the users to determine what people are
00:08:31.120watching, and in that way, the users decide what is of importance to them. So we have two different
00:08:38.620information systems, and this top-down one tends to privilege white, richer, more privileged people.
00:08:47.940It tends to be composed of people who come from more privileged backgrounds.
00:08:54.940It speaks about their problems and things that they are interested in thinking about.
00:09:01.840They, in particular, like, they have to sell subscriptions or sell ads.
00:09:08.440So they have to run stories that they know that the wealthy audience that they pander to will be interested in the first place.
00:09:15.220because it's really not that profitable to tell stories of marginalized people who can't afford
00:09:21.660to subscribe to their newspaper. So TikTok, being this much more bottom-up infrastructure,
00:09:28.340allowed for two major like kind of newish forms of massive dissemination of news and information.
00:09:36.860The first would be seeing information from firsthand accounts. So that's like when, you know,
00:09:44.180The start of the invasion of Ukraine, where we saw all of these videos of people fleeing the country or being in bomb shelters.
00:09:50.420So you're seeing people who are actually experiencing the events posting online, and that garners attention without editors needing to push it out.
00:09:59.140And then the second is through trusted messengers.
00:10:01.640And these are people that can speak to specific communities, and they have had a lot of success on TikTok.
00:10:10.880They have built up these communities where they are trusted sources of information and sometimes opinion.
00:10:18.100People go to them to try and feel like they can understand certain problems.
00:10:22.220And, you know, this could range from a community of like 10,000 people to communities of millions of people.
00:10:27.820But this is particularly advantageous to marginalized groups who probably can't afford a subscription to the New York Times.
00:10:35.180Or alternatively, they don't want one because they don't trust the New York Times.
00:10:38.320They've never seen themselves represented in the New York Times.
00:10:41.300Like, there are so many reasons why they might not turn to legacy media, but they will turn
00:10:46.500to, like, a trusted messenger who looks like them, who speaks their language, who they
00:10:50.520feel understands them and their communities.
00:10:53.260And so if we dismantle that infrastructure, like, suddenly, like, flipping off a light
00:10:59.060switch, you'd be leaving all of these communities without their information infrastructure.
00:11:04.340And that could be leaving them in the dark.
00:11:06.620It could be really, really damaging for them.
00:11:09.380And they're very resilient to all of these marginalized communities, whether it's communities of color, queer communities, disabled communities.
00:11:18.520But keeping them in a state of, like, constantly rebuilding the information infrastructure stops them from being able to do things like organize and mobilize and gain power because they're constantly rebuilding their information infrastructure.
00:11:33.660i mean that's such a good point like i oh where do i even start i i think that one of the reasons
00:11:43.180why we're even having this conversation is like a fundamental misunderstanding of the ways that
00:11:48.140platforms like tiktok have worked and what they have like been used to like what movements they've
00:11:53.500been used to build right like i still see people being like oh like it's a kid's dancing app which
00:11:57.260like part of my soul dies every time i hear that you know looking at around like what was happening
00:12:02.780to women in Iran. I have to say, I don't think I would have known what was happening. I don't think
00:12:07.540I would have known what was going on if not for TikTok, if not for Iranian women saying, hey,1.00
00:12:11.900this is what's going on. Here's how you can help. Here's what we need. I don't think I would have1.00
00:12:15.200been able to be plugged into what was happening if not for TikTok. And so I think that it's like
00:12:21.580the people who are legislating this don't necessarily have that visibility into the
00:12:27.740ways that it has functioned for communities who are marginalized. And so if we're going to have
00:12:32.520any conversation about just an outright ban, they're not even including that in the conversation.
00:12:38.740And I feel like it's kind of like what you said, like, if we're going to do something about how
00:12:42.740these apps and platforms function in our lives and in our like media ecosystem, let's not have
00:12:48.540it be done hastily and badly, right? Where people are going to be, have the rug pulled out from
00:12:53.540under them and their very real issues are not even being discussed or like, you know, brought to the
00:12:58.640table. Oh, yeah, there's no nuance in this conversation whatsoever. And you would think
00:13:04.320that if we're going to have a conversation about pulling the plug on one of the biggest pieces of
00:13:09.880communications infrastructure in the world, that is a conversation that we should be very careful
00:13:19.000about. Dismantling infrastructure that large is not a decision that should be taken lightly. And
00:13:27.880yet it seems like our representatives like truly have bought into this idea that TikTok is somehow
00:13:34.080simultaneously just a kid's dancing app and also spyware. Like it's really confusing how it can be
00:13:42.440both. And like saying like, oh, well, you could push specific, you know, you could push specific
00:13:48.200misinformation campaigns and try and sway the American populace, but then also simultaneously
00:13:56.240continuously ignoring the fact that, like, it is a messaging center for a huge portion of the
00:14:03.420American populace. If you just remove it, there will be consequences. And then when I bring this
00:14:09.740up, I see some people just like, oh, well, you know, at the, like, you know, national security
00:14:15.000is more important. Or it's like, everyone will just go to a new app. And like, yes, probably
00:14:22.420they will, but that doesn't mean that it won't cause a lot of harm in the process. It doesn't
00:14:29.040mean that people will, you know, there's still going to be lots of creators who lose their
00:14:32.660jobs. Um, there's going to be people, people who have built these large audiences who now
00:14:40.900have nothing. Um, and a lot of people whose voices were empowered and suddenly were coming
00:14:48.920into a position of discursive power who will now not have access to that and even if like yes
00:14:58.580technically if you look at like a very big picture level people will migrate to new apps sure but
00:15:06.800there's still going to be a lot of consequences and we can't really ignore that yeah i mean even
00:15:12.800looking at what's going on with twitter i there was a time where i was like oh everyone's going
00:15:17.420to be using Mastodon or this or that. I know that our communities, particularly marginalized
00:15:23.860communities, as you said, are really resilient. And we always find a way to make, we always make
00:15:29.500a way out of no way, right? Like that is what we do. But it's watching Twitter become a place where
00:15:37.060people spend less and less of their time. There hasn't been like one place where everybody is
00:15:40.800like setting up shop. And so it takes longer, it's messier, it's more energy for these communities
00:15:46.980many of whom, if you look at the trans community and the queer community, are up against quite a bit right now.
00:15:51.920And so maybe having to pick up and rebuild a new communications infrastructure elsewhere is not what they need right now,
00:16:00.280is maybe not going to be great for those communities.
00:16:02.980It'll be horrible for them because now, in addition to legislation that is threatening their right to exist,
00:16:11.940They also don't have their communities that they can turn to for advice, for support, for information, and they don't have access to their broader communications network to mobilize and plan what they will do in response or try and have a place they can turn to to raise funds if they need surgery or if they need legal fees or if they need to get out of whichever state they're in.
00:16:41.940If you remove the communications infrastructure, and we're talking about a marginalized community that is undergoing a lot of legislative challenges right now, that's putting them in a position that just increases their marginalization.
00:18:32.640It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:18:40.540Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:18:49.720Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:21:40.120So this is like applying a used, gross, infected Band-Aid to a wound that will really not fix the wound at all, but will almost certainly add additional infections.
00:21:55.780Oh, my God. I was just about to read your quote in the Newsweek piece back to you. But yeah, I mean, this is what really gets me about this conversation is that, like, I guess we have no meaningful data privacy legislation in this country, right?
00:22:12.600And so like that, the fact that we're even having this conversation indicates to me a complete failure of leadership, governing and legislating.
00:22:20.940Right. And so I feel like banning TikTok is this big, flashy gesture of like, see, we did something.
00:22:29.860See, we got it together and governed and and made some kind of a gesture toward, you know, data privacy.
00:22:36.580but it actually does nothing. As you said, like there's nothing keeping these companies or really
00:22:41.460anybody from buying our data. Like there are so many other, the fact that our data is so misused
00:22:48.400and like that is the baseline, shouldn't we be talking about that? So even if we were to ban
00:22:53.660TikTok, it would be totally possible for the Chinese government to access Americans' data
00:22:58.820in all other kinds of ways that maybe they have. And so it's like, what does it really do if the
00:23:03.180real problem is our lack of data privacy infrastructure in this country.
00:23:07.260Other than being a big flashy gesture, what does banning TikTok actually achieve?
00:23:13.420I mean, to answer your question, nothing. On a political level, I think that
00:23:20.180it is a distraction that allows for the American public to feel like something was done to make
00:23:28.040them feel safer while simultaneously not passing the legislation that would actually protect the
00:23:35.680American public. And we are a superpower and we demand that all of the major social media platforms
00:23:43.360be stemming from us. How dare the Chinese also have one? Yeah, I saw this great USA Today headline1.00
00:23:50.860that was like, how dare China try to get my data from TikTok? Don't they know that that's for0.50
00:23:57.660Google and Facebook. But I think like, like, we have just like lost the plot of doing anything
00:24:06.360to meaningfully address this. And yeah, I think like during the hearing, some of the things that
00:24:11.840came up around like content moderation and stuff, those are important conversations to have. But
00:24:16.740having them, having TikTok be the face of, you know, a lack of content moderation or hate speech
00:24:25.540and harmful content proliferating on a platform.
00:24:28.540As someone who has worked in this space for a while,
00:24:49.760And I mean, the examples that they were pointing to,
00:24:51.960aside from these like moral panic challenges,
00:24:54.120is. The examples of violent content on the app were really wild that they were pointing to it
00:25:02.160in the first place. Because as far as removing, you know, really violent content, TikTok is better
00:25:12.020than most of the other platforms. I mean, I professionally criticize them. It's one of my
00:25:16.920favorite things to do is bullying tiktok but they will generally be pretty good about removing
00:25:24.300anything that i flagged towards them um and they have a lot of like horrible things on their apps
00:25:30.240like absolutely but all social media platforms do and so what you really want to be looking at
00:25:34.700too is just how much reach are those things getting so one of the videos that they pulled up
00:25:39.560uh during the hearing was an imagery of a gun and i think it included one of the committee members
00:25:45.640names and it was and they were they were railing on TikTok because the video had been up for I
00:25:51.820believe 41 days and what they were failing to account for is that the video had like no likes
00:25:59.040it was not a video that had been engaged with whatsoever so arguably it's actually TikTok it's
00:26:06.020evidence that TikTok was doing a decent job with its moderation but that it had like siphoned this
00:26:11.820off and contained it um more than anything else like yes it shouldn't be on the platform at all
00:26:17.700but if it's not getting any reach really then tiktok's moderation to an extent is working
00:26:25.840that's the whole point it's like you want these things contained you want them you want them
00:26:30.120quarantined so that they don't spread so being able to point towards that was like it was such
00:26:35.800a strange choice and then it was additionally strange because we love guns in this country
00:26:41.700but apparently have problems with images of them.
00:26:45.200If you watched the hearing, there were actually some pretty good questions that came up.
00:26:49.480Representative Yvette D. Clark asked whether or not TikTok suppresses marginalized creators.
00:26:54.180And Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester asked about whether accurate information about abortion is being suppressed on TikTok.
00:27:00.980But what was much more abundant, sadly, were questions that weren't just silly,
00:27:04.960but also underscored how little some elected officials seem to know about the technology that they are responsible for legislating.
00:27:13.500Yeah, I mean, that example really brings me to something that, like, it pains me, but I can't not talk about it with you.
00:27:22.060How some of the questions and examples that these elected officials were raising were just embarrassing.
00:27:29.340Like, you know, Representative Richard Hudson from North Carolina, like, I'm sure you know what I'm getting at, the, like, exchange about whether or not TikTok accesses users' home Wi-Fi.
00:27:40.560Like, do you ever feel like the people that we have elected to represent us and to advocate for us and our interests up against big tech just are making it clear that they're talking about legislating technology that they seem to not really understand or get?
00:27:59.340No, it was quite clear that no one on that committee had ever opened TikTok.
00:28:07.580They're just making wild statements and accusations and guesses about how it works.
00:28:12.560And if you go on TikTok now, in response to that committee, I mean, they're just being ridiculed.
00:28:18.480Because the users can tell that these congressmen and women have never really actually used the app
00:28:27.300or know what they're talking about in any way, shape, or form.
00:28:29.340And it is mind-bogglingly infuriating to witness people who don't even understand how Wi-Fi works or couldn't tell you the difference between a modem and a rotor trying to legislate major social media policies and major data privacy policies.
00:28:52.920They don't understand any of it. So how are we expecting them to even know where to begin when
00:28:59.620it comes to those bigger legislative problems? It really goes back to what you said in the
00:29:05.140beginning of our conversation of like, if we're going to do it, let's not do it badly. Let's not
00:29:10.720do it in a way that like we are talking about a pretty major communications platform. If we're
00:29:16.480going to do it, let's not have the people in charge make it clear time and time again that
00:29:20.860they have no idea what they're talking about maybe just maybe just maybe that could maybe be a good
00:29:25.800place to start is like knowing that you need to use wi-fi to access tiktok like hi oh my god i
00:29:35.360really liked the um exchange about whether or not tiktok tracked how much your pupils dilated
00:29:43.960in response to certain videos and it's like no they look at watch time
00:29:49.660they're not like reading your pupils to see how big they get in response to each video
00:29:56.680i don't know what black mirror episode you think we are in we're in a different one we're still in
00:30:02.240one but it's different just a different episode yeah i don't think i don't think that tiktok is
00:30:08.340like logging your biometrics, dude. Some of those questions were concerning. And I also think they
00:30:17.140just reveal how we just need younger people. I think younger folks, both in elected office
00:30:27.700and also being listened to, I think is really, really important. People who actually have
00:30:33.000real world experience with the technology that they're talking about, because as you said,
00:30:37.040it was just so clear that many of the folks in Congress had just had no idea what they were
00:30:42.200talking about. Yeah, no, we would absolutely need to have younger people or just more digitally
00:30:48.260literate people writing these laws. Because if you truly don't understand that the app needs to
00:30:55.360track where your eyes are so that they can put sunglass filters on you, that is just something
00:31:02.280that a younger person would need to explain and need to help them understand. And if all of our
00:31:10.860legislators are, you know, I don't want to say dinosaurs, but like they're acting like dinosaurs
00:31:16.800right now and I feel like it's called for, then we can't expect solid digital legislation from
00:31:24.720them. Like they don't know what they're doing. They don't understand anything beyond email at
00:31:28.500this point yeah that is sad i mean it's really sad it's really scary because if you want to talk
00:31:36.160about like the american people being vulnerable our leaders not even understanding like the
00:31:41.900you know bare minimum that they need to understand about how the internet works
00:31:45.880like that leaves us quite vulnerable that's such a good point
00:31:51.660that seems like a much bigger threat our leaders failing to understand
00:31:58.700anything about technology feels like a much bigger threat than this tiktok boogeyman scare
00:32:07.100so what do you say to someone listening who is like i am concerned about the national security
00:32:13.080threat that tiktok poses still what would you say to that person i would say that at this point in
00:32:18.860time, we have seen more evidence of Facebook engaging in schemes to manipulate the American
00:32:27.220public than we have TikTok. I mean, we have evidence of Cambridge Analytica. We know that
00:32:32.260Meta was involved with this. We have no evidence of TikTok doing it. So at the moment, all of our
00:32:38.980fears are based around a hypothetical and that they are based around this like boogeyman of China.
00:32:47.360um and that that might not be the best place to create legislation from like that mentality
00:32:56.020might not lend itself to the creation of like really strong digital privacy legislation
00:33:04.340and that i mean also if you are personally concerned about tiktok like there's no reason
00:33:11.360why you have to have it on your phones um that's a decision that you can totally make
00:33:17.060if you have if you have national secrets on your phones like maybe don't have tiktok on it
00:33:21.940but then also like maybe don't use any other social media platforms
00:33:25.840because they are all gathering your data
00:36:05.040It's coming from a fearful place, and that's not where we get good legislation.
00:36:09.820And if you want to have a much bigger conversation about social media and the future of social media and whether it's bad for us, whether it's good for us, what harms it does, but also, you know, what net positives it brings to the world, I am here for that conversation.
00:36:25.660It'll take us a few years to get to the bottom of it.
00:36:28.500It is not like a quick and easy conversation to have, but I do think that that's one we should be having.
00:40:39.320it's gonna sound how it sounds, but I truly believe this.
00:40:42.480I think if TikTok is banned in the United States,
00:40:48.380I see that going very poor for Biden and the Democrats,
00:40:51.640not to make this like a horse race issue,
00:40:53.700but I think that some of the most interesting,
00:40:56.180meaningful organizing of young folks politically is happening on tiktok if you look at the
00:41:01.860conversations that younger folks are leading on when it comes to things like climate justice
00:41:06.500those conversations are happening on tiktok and they are mobilization conversations so i don't
00:41:11.620i'm not saying that i think that young people will be like oh we love tiktok and we're not
00:41:16.180going to vote for joe biden just because he banned it and we love it i think it's much deeper than
00:41:20.420that i think that gen z uses it as a platform to do political and social mobilization and organizing
00:41:27.540if you show that you don't not just don't understand that don't see it don't value it0.96
00:41:32.740ignore it that is going to be a problem and so it's not an issue of like oh these whiny brats
00:41:37.300just want their dance videos no no i think it's much deeper than that and if you if you show that
00:41:42.660you aren't even able to see that it is going to be a problem a hundred percent and people keep
00:41:48.580playing this off as like, oh, you're going to piss off Gen Z. And it's like, that's less what
00:41:54.060I'm worried about. I think a lot of Gen Z would still, you know, the ones who are going to vote
00:41:58.760anyways will still vote for the lesser of two evils. Like that's going to continue. But what0.69
00:42:03.940you will lose is all of this mobilization infrastructure where people are getting their
00:42:12.820news, where people are having like lots of political discourse, what is helping young
00:42:17.860people to understand the world is the discourse on TikTok, is the trusted messengers that they
00:42:24.040turn to on TikTok. And if you take that away, they're just going to not be as politically
00:42:30.740engaged. Because TikTok made it really easy for them to get politically engaged and get
00:42:36.380politically informed and deep dive into this discourse. People keep saying TikTok is this
00:42:42.500dancing app, and it's so, so wrong because fundamentally it's a discourse app. It's where
00:42:47.120people are having conversations about the world that's why like stitching was such a groundbreaking
00:42:53.580feature because you could take one video and respond to it and you get this like built and
00:42:59.220constructed constant discourse about political and social issues if you remove that you know
00:43:07.980they might still be left-leaning and like some of them might vote but they won't be as informed on
00:43:13.060certain issues. They won't necessarily know where to, or like where to be putting their energy for
00:43:21.600certain political issues. Like they would just be losing so much of their infrastructure and that
00:43:25.420will have severe costs, particularly for the Dems. And it's really mind blowing to me that
00:43:30.700they don't recognize that. Yeah, I'm just, I'm completely shocked. I shouldn't be. I shouldn't
00:43:39.280be. I'm years into this. I shouldn't be. Well, here's, I mean, big question. Where will Abby
00:43:45.000Richards go if there's no TikTok? Like I think of you as the person who is like made a platform,
00:43:51.120like one of the first people who really made a platform from calling out and criticizing TikTok
00:43:56.680and advocating for it to be better. Where do you personally see yourself showing up if it's banned?
00:44:02.200Here's the thing is like on one level, I think I experienced some panic where it's like,
00:44:06.360if I lose my platform on TikTok, do I lose my power? Like, you know, will I still have
00:44:11.640work to do? Will people still see me as valuable? And then I, after, you know, a little bit of
00:44:18.060dwelling in that panic, I got over it because it's like, no, I'm privileged. I have a lot of
00:44:23.400like institutional power at this point. Like I can pivot to other platforms if I want. And
00:44:28.760fundamentally, I think that the deeper we go into a tech dystopia, the more job security I actually0.95
00:44:34.580have um which is dark but i think it's true that was some dark abby that was some dark shit but i0.75
00:44:42.220i mean you're right right like like you call out tiktok but really you're calling out like0.50
00:44:49.200our media ecosystem the way that it impacts our democracy like it's so much more than one platform
00:44:54.420what your your voice is about so much more than one platform i guess i'll put it that way but that
00:44:58.240but i agree with you that like you know when i started this tech podcast i never knew the like
00:45:04.520I remember thinking like, oh, maybe I'll, what if I run out of content? What if I run out of like
00:45:09.140things to talk about? Nope, I sure never will. Never ever. I mean, my goal is to eventually put
00:45:16.380myself out of a job. I would really like if I could work hard enough and eradicate all of the
00:45:20.580misinformation and hate speech online. And then one day I get to retire and I don't need to do
00:45:24.920this job anymore. I don't see that happening. So I think, you know, TikTok is banned. I will go to
00:45:30.240other platforms. I will build out my presence on other platforms too. I'm far more concerned about
00:45:38.320like the people who don't have the institutional backing and who don't have power outside of their
00:45:45.820TikTok presence. Like they will have their lives much more uprooted than I think I will.
00:45:53.180We are in such uncharted waters. Yeah, no, truly what happens to the creators?
00:45:58.380Like, because Congress, I saw one congressman, like, went on Politico and was like, no, they'll be able to switch to a different platform.
00:46:08.340As if they haven't spent the last, like, two, three, four years building a platform so that now they can do brand deals or now they can make money from the creator fund.
00:46:19.900And now, oh, no, they can just start over.
00:46:28.380But again, it's showing that the people who are meant to be legislating this just don't have a real realistic understanding of what they're actually talking about.
00:46:37.400And when they make suggestions like that, it's like, have you taken a step back to ask what that actually looks like in practice?
00:46:46.060I will say where there are marginalized creators on a platform facing some kind of something that they don't like, there's always really good pushback.
00:46:59.220And so scrolling the platform after those hearings, got to give it up to the creators who are using their strengths, creating good content to educate people on those hearings and sort of what they thought about them.
00:47:11.520I've seen such hilarious TikToks coming out of that.0.99
00:47:14.200I saw one creator who was pretending to be a lawmaker in Congress who was like, I want to know, and my wife wants to know, why every time I open TikTok, all I see is these big-breasted women?0.98
00:47:27.680Just making fun of how silly some of their questions were.
00:47:31.920So that's something I'll always have faith in, is marginalized creators being able to use social media platforms to poke fun at legislators and to spotlight and educate folks on something that they do not like.
00:47:43.080Oh, 100%. The TikToks coming out of this have been phenomenal. I was getting a lot of comfort last night in just seeing the conversations that were being had. Did you see any of the Chew edits? The edits of the CEO? People were making spicy edits of him?
00:48:00.080um being like save save tiktok uh those were great there were a lot of um
00:48:08.560i want to see if i can pull one i know i just screenshotted one this morning that was giving
00:48:13.600me life um oh it was the cap cut meme of pedro pascal eating his cracker sandwich
00:48:24.200and then uh it says me watching the ceo of tiktok defend the american people and our rights from
00:48:31.920the literal u.s government all while they mispronounce his name have no knowledge about
00:48:36.160how wi-fi works and are saying they are doing it for the children when there was yet another
00:48:40.780school shooting that i didn't see on the news but i did see reported on tiktok
00:48:44.340doesn't that really say it all that does that sums it up doesn't it0.97
00:48:49.680so like tiktok is reading this stuff for shit but like the rest of the internet i don't know so much0.81
00:48:56.720because there was also that study that came out or i don't know if it's a study it was a report0.96
00:49:00.660well i want to say no i don't even remember which which day's organization ran it that was
00:49:06.760the biggest determining factor whether or not you support the tiktok ban is whether or not you use
00:49:11.440tiktok yeah so there you go it's like people who don't who like don't have direct familiarity with
00:49:18.940the issue are the ones who are in favor of an outright ban.
00:49:24.120Yeah, they're much, it's much more, it is much easier to convince people who are not
00:49:28.880even using the app that the app is dangerous because they're, they are not exposed to it.
00:49:34.700They don't understand how it actually works.
00:49:36.380It's much easier to fear monger about something that you're unfamiliar with.
00:49:39.860It's much easier to hijack people's feelings of fear and distrust if they don't even know
00:49:45.120the other group that they're dealing with. If they're completely unfamiliar with the topic,
00:49:48.920then you can just push like fear mongering on them. But the people on TikTok who have their
00:49:55.600own experiences with it, you know, can read that as bullshit. Yeah, totally in favor of some0.98
00:50:02.800comprehensive sweeping data privacy legislation that would absolutely affect TikTok. Let's do
00:50:08.760that from a place of reason. And, you know, national security of the American people.
00:50:15.240Like, if we actually cared about that, let's go write that legislation.
00:50:19.940In the end, TikTok and its part in our larger digital media ecosystem is huge. So a potential
00:50:26.240ban would have major consequences, not just for the millions of people who use it, but for the
00:50:31.220way that information and discourse is spread. Oh, this was cut from my Newsweek article,
00:50:37.320but it was good um it's so like i'm a member of this coalition of tiktok members or i'm a member
00:50:48.820of this coalition of tiktokers tiktok influencers um with the coalition has over 500 members and
00:50:56.380collectively they have over 500 million followers um and to put that in perspective i believe that
00:51:02.840that is more than the collective monthly viewership of Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, which is about 5 million.
00:51:12.280So not just more, it's like 100 times more than their monthly viewership. And that's just like
00:51:17.920their following count. But I thought that that was a good way to highlight just how vast this
00:51:30.480infrastructure is. And that we're not talking about cutting off like a couple million people
00:51:34.380or like, you know, a handful of people. We're talking about dismantling in a communications
00:51:40.080infrastructure that is so vast that it is like literally hundreds of times the reach of the
00:51:47.100biggest news networks that we can think of. That is not a decision that we should be taking lightly.
00:51:53.380I'm so glad you added that. I do think that for people who don't use TikTok,
00:51:58.900It's probably easy to think of it as like, it's like that Arrested Development line.
00:52:07.540Like, they might not necessarily know the gravity of the way that it functions as a communications platform and its role in our larger ecosystem of digital communications, which is vast.
00:59:37.660I know that I can, like, when I first started, I didn't know that I could, like, restart a sentence when I, like, the first time I ever did podcasts.