There Are No Girls on the Internet - TikTok ban signed into law. What happens next？

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00:00:34.940 I survived nine months in captivity,

00:00:38.460 and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:00:43.680 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.

00:00:47.300 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable,

00:00:51.020 abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:00:54.640 These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:00:58.700 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:01:10.580 There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:01:18.700 I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:01:21.440 welcome to there are no girls on the internet where we explore the intersections of identity

00:01:28.200 social media and technology and y'all i take one week from rounding up the news and we get the

00:01:34.560 big update that is the big tiktok update joey were you surprised to see that biden signed

00:01:42.320 legislation essentially banning tiktok into law this week like i want to say that i'm i was

00:01:49.380 surprised. But at this point, I don't know. I'm not really surprised. I feel like who's to say

00:01:58.220 what's happening with this administration. Yeah, that's kind of how I feel. So I want to

00:02:03.000 tell folks what's going on, and then I'll get into sort of my thoughts about it. So

00:02:07.460 in case you have not heard, this week, President Biden signed a foreign aid package that includes

00:02:12.200 a bill that would ban TikTok if the China-based parent company ByteDance fails to divest from

00:02:18.440 the app and sell it to a non-Chinese-owned company. We've been talking about the potential 0.54

00:02:23.220 for a TikTok ban for a while. It sounds like there was some very serious political maneuvering

00:02:30.600 to get where we are today. So earlier this year, House lawmakers overwhelmingly voted in favor

00:02:35.700 the bill called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act

00:02:40.680 when it was brought as a standalone measure with a shorter timeframe for ByteDance to sell TikTok.

00:02:46.460 So that timeframe was six months. It seemed like that bill, even though a lot of people in the

00:02:52.760 House were like, yes, this bill, it passed overwhelmingly. It seemed like it might have

00:02:58.060 had trouble passing in the Senate. Key Senate leaders were pretty noncommittal about it.

00:03:02.720 Some even signaled that they might not vote for it. So the way to get this TikTok legislation

00:03:07.460 through then became bundling it into the high priority foreign aid package, which essentially

00:03:14.540 forced the Senate to take up the issue earlier than it probably would have otherwise, right?

00:03:19.300 So how this worked was that in addition to separate votes on aid packages for Ukraine,

00:03:25.200 Israel, and Taiwan, lawmakers were also voting on the 21st Century Peace Through Strength Act,

00:03:31.160 which was sort of like a grab bag of popular national security measures that slate reports

00:03:36.880 included things like bills to seize frozen Russian assets or the ability to impose sanctions on

00:03:43.060 fentanyl traffickers and a lot more sort of like national security stuff. And that the Protecting

00:03:48.160 Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, aka the TikTok legislation,

00:03:53.160 was sort of bundled within that larger legislation. In order to get aid for any of these countries,

00:03:59.320 senators had to vote for the entire package, which included the TikTok bill. So that's kind

00:04:04.160 of how we got to where we are right now, where in earlier episodes, Joey, you and I were like,

00:04:09.240 oh maybe it'll happen like maybe the senate will pass it i guess they're going to discuss it we'll

00:04:13.560 see how he went from that to like oh now it is signed into law yeah it feels like the kind of

00:04:20.960 thing that that like shouldn't happen in a functioning democracy i will say like i don't

00:04:25.840 it feels like the kind of thing that maybe we shouldn't just have like a grab bag of different

00:04:31.520 legislation that has to all be passed together which all on its own is is you know open to

00:04:37.020 scrutiny um but yeah the peace through strength act too like that i'm not one to say things sound

00:04:45.780 like they're like 1984-esque but that is a 1984 type law name like are you serious like that i

00:04:55.280 i don't know and yeah no i will i mean like you said i i will admit i was i i honestly did not

00:05:02.020 think this is going to pass. I thought the Biden administration currently is facing a lot of

00:05:08.380 scrutiny about a lot of different issues and a lot of different issues, particularly that young

00:05:12.900 people are paying attention to. You know, I would have thought this maybe would have been a little

00:05:16.860 bit less priority for them, but guess not. Guess not. Yeah, that is. So I want to get into that

00:05:23.980 because I feel like that is really coloring a lot of the conversation is like that exact sentiment.

00:05:29.240 And I feel like, I think I've said this on the show before, that I thought that we would see a TikTok ban in 2024. That was on my bingo card of legislation that I thought was going to happen. However, I think the fact that we were talking about this standalone legislation and then we're talking about it as bundled in these foreign aid packages, I guess I'm surprised by how it ended up happening, how quickly it happened. I thought we had a lot more time, but here we are.

00:05:58.160 So in the previous version of this standalone legislation, ByteDance had six months to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese owner. But the legislation that Biden just signed into law this week extends that timeline.

00:06:10.180 So the new law would allow TikTok to continue to operate in the U.S. if ByteDance sold it within 270 days or about nine months, a time frame that Biden could extend up to a year.

00:06:21.860 In case you're wondering, this timeline puts the date of sale and whatever happens after that sale after the election in November, which I cannot imagine is by coincidence.

00:06:32.160 Wonder why he picked that date, you know.

00:06:34.620 So lawmakers are really going out of their way to try to make sure that people don't think of this

00:06:43.500 as a TikTok ban specifically. They're like, TikTok ban? What are you talking about? We love TikTok.

00:06:48.580 We don't want to keep TikTok from people. So Virginia Democrat Mark Warner, who was one of

00:06:53.260 the lawmakers who was really pushing this legislation, said, I want to make clear to all

00:06:57.140 Americans, this is not an effort to take your voice away. Many Americans, particularly young

00:07:01.720 Americans are rightfully skeptical. At the end of the day, they've not seen what Congress has seen.

00:07:07.300 They've not been in the classified briefings that Congress has held, which have delved more

00:07:11.740 deeply into some of the threats posed by foreign control of TikTok. But what they have seen,

00:07:16.800 beyond even this bill, is Congress's failure to enact meaningful consumer protections on big tech

00:07:21.820 and may cynically view this as a diversion, or worse, a concession to U.S. social media platforms.

00:07:27.940 To those young Americans, Joey, I want to say we hear your concern, and we hope that TikTok will continue under new ownership, American or otherwise.

00:07:37.960 What do you think about that?

00:07:39.360 You know, I really feel seen and heard.

00:07:41.400 I really feel like the Democratic Party definitely got at all of my concerns about this legislation.

00:07:48.540 Yeah.

00:07:49.100 Oh, my God.

00:07:49.580 That makes so much sense.

00:07:50.560 Of course, it's just classified information that we haven't seen. 0.84

00:07:54.880 I don't know I mean that's so that's such a ridiculous statement for so many reasons like

00:08:03.820 first of all that is so so patronizing and I feel like that like we're in a weird spot where I think

00:08:11.300 a lot of politicians are very much like leaning on that like well you know it just well there's

00:08:16.100 classified information you don't know about or whatever and I don't think that's working as well

00:08:20.420 in this situation because like the whole point is it's an issue of freedom of speech and it's an

00:08:25.540 issue of like hey you've had all these very public congressional trials i mean we all saw that the

00:08:32.500 the congressional trial and the clip of them asking the singaporean ceo of tiktok if he was a member

00:08:38.940 of the communist party of china or whatever um so i feel like that that excuse doesn't hold up as

00:08:45.680 well um and then yeah like they're they're he he just laid it out there he said you know oh no no

00:08:52.080 no don't worry the issue isn't that we're caving to u.s social media platforms except that is

00:08:57.580 exactly what's happening like um yeah i don't know it feels it's it's so strange and so patronizing

00:09:07.140 and i i i think feel very similarly to a lot of these young americans that he's addressing 0.96

00:09:14.720 uh and that this this sounds like bullshit and i think the reason why it sounds like bullshit is 0.93

00:09:20.960 that we just don't know what he's referring to it's classified right so exactly you know they've

00:09:25.420 cited national security concerns stemming from the app's chinese ownership specifically they

00:09:31.020 have talked about like the possibility of the chinese government like accessing data of american

00:09:36.100 users or using the app and it's like very powerful algorithm to spread propaganda or

00:09:42.820 influence elections and spread chaos, right? As far as I know, this is a little bit out of my

00:09:47.960 wheelhouse. As far as I know, to us, the American people, that is largely theoretical. Like, oh,

00:09:54.060 they could potentially, they could do this. It's not like we have a smoking gun of them doing that

00:09:58.060 on a wide scale. I'm not in these classified briefings, so I have no idea. But members of

00:10:03.220 Congress are referring to information that they say that they have seen and heard in the security

00:10:08.140 briefings about the potential for TikTok to harm American interests. But we just don't know about

00:10:13.240 any of that because the contents of these briefings are not public. So we're just being told TikTok,

00:10:18.640 this app that you're using every day, that many of these elected officials, Biden included,

00:10:23.820 are using all the time. It is this massive security threat. Just trust us.

00:10:28.260 I think the real issue is I think a lot of these Congress people are just upset that they're not

00:10:32.220 getting the number of followers that they thought they would get on TikTok. That's my theory.

00:10:36.500 uh because and that's understandable you know what i get it i've been frustrated sometimes when

00:10:42.140 i made a video that i put a lot of effort into and i wanted it to perform better uh that's

00:10:47.440 understandable if that's your reason for wanting to ban tiktok just say that i think you'll get a

00:10:51.940 lot more people on your side listen i would be sympathetic i tried tiktok and tiktok for me was

00:10:57.840 a flop i am not i am not a tiktok girly it's just like i have to accept that about myself so i i

00:11:03.620 If they came out and said that, they would have my sympathy.

00:11:06.200 I'd be like, oh, my TikToks never do numbers either.

00:11:08.660 I get it.

00:11:09.360 We've all been there.

00:11:10.020 So there is some talk of the need for transparency into what these lawmakers are saying that,

00:11:16.860 like, we don't know.

00:11:18.120 Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal and Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn are calling

00:11:22.200 for TikTok briefings to be declassified so that the government can, quote, better educate

00:11:27.600 the public on the need for urgent action.

00:11:29.520 We are deeply troubled by the information and concerns raised by the intelligence community in recent classified briefings to Congress.

00:11:36.040 TikTok is a weapon in the hands of the Chinese government and poses an active risk to our democratic institutions and national security, they wrote.

00:11:43.820 Senators Blumenthal and Blackburn, that is the duo that also brought you the Kids Online Safety Act.

00:11:50.220 Oh, there we go!

00:11:51.160 Oh, I mean, you know, I am very curious to see what what I you know what I think actually, yeah, if they if they do release this information, if they do show the public what is what actually is the scary classified information that that is the reason they need to ban TikTok. 0.97

00:12:07.200 But knowing them and their history, it's probably just like there were trans people on the app. 0.96

00:12:13.260 Yes. And like, I think that, Joey, I think that you and I talked about this. Blackburn specifically earlier in earlier iterations of the Kids Online Safety Act was like pretty explicitly when asked like, oh, what's your beef with the Internet? Like, why do you want to have this? Why do you want to regulate it in this way? She was like, oh, you know, we're planning on using it to make sure that content about trans identity doesn't reach youth. We want to keep youth from that kind of unsafe information.

00:12:38.820 and then people were like really and then she was like oh no no i was misquoted i was misquoted

00:12:43.660 but it's like a video so you really weren't misquoted i saw you say it on a video with my

00:12:49.140 eyes guys it was out of context that is really good like i'm glad that you added that and

00:12:56.640 honestly like when it comes to something as expansive and impactful as like regulating

00:13:03.380 the internet or regulating the social media apps that we use which by the way i don't want to make

00:13:08.420 it seem like I'm like, oh, platforms should just be able to do whatever they want. That is not how

00:13:13.780 I feel. However, it does just highlight that people like Blackburn, who have a really clear

00:13:21.640 public record of how she feels and how she is going to use this kind of internet legislation

00:13:30.060 and regulation to further marginalize and criminalize marginalized people, we're not

00:13:36.260 making that up, she says that it is concerning to me that these are the people who are being tasked

00:13:40.820 with making changes and laws about how we access or don't access the internet. Like that on its

00:13:48.000 base is really troubling to me. Let's take a quick break.

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00:15:56.280 So Biden has signed this legislation. What happens now? Well, probably for all of us and all of you

00:16:02.480 listening, nothing really in the short term. So first of all, TikTok is not going anywhere for

00:16:07.960 at least a couple of months. The countdown clock where they need to sell has started, but like

00:16:13.780 they have eight months to do to figure that out. So it's not like TikTok's not going to work on

00:16:18.500 your phone right now. But even still, this probably is the beginning of what will be a

00:16:23.720 complicated legal challenge. TikTok has already signaled that they intend to fight this legislation

00:16:28.680 in the courts. TikTok's chief executive, Sho Chu, said, rest assured, we are not going anywhere. We

00:16:34.160 are confident and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts. Side note, it is really

00:16:39.220 interesting to me how TikTok has framed this as like, we are fighting for your rights. I love

00:16:47.360 TikTok. I'm actually wearing a TikTok sweatshirt right now that I got from an event, which like

00:16:53.720 It's not because I'm in the bag for big TikTok, although if they wanted to pay me. No, I'm just kidding. No, I don't take money from social media platforms. But yeah, I mean, nobody's made me a compelling offer. This sweatshirt is very nice, but it's not going to cut it.

00:17:08.280 Yeah, I think it's interesting how they've been able to publicly frame this as like, oh, we're not fighting for our platform that we run and own and make money from.

00:17:20.920 We're fighting for you and your rights.

00:17:23.080 It's an interesting framing, one that I don't totally agree with, but I get why they're framing it that way.

00:17:30.480 Like when I was looking at the images from some of the in-person like rallies in support of TikTok, TikTok had clearly given out signs for folks to hold that would say like, I'm one of the however many TikTok users there are in America who wants my rights represented.

00:17:46.960 They've really been able to frame this as a grassroots, we're just fighting for your rights kind of thing. Airbnb, I feel like, really set the playbook for how to make it seem like, oh, this isn't a big tech company advocating in this way. This is just local grassroots mom and pop small businesses. You know what I'm saying?

00:18:08.420 Well, Bridget, it sounds like you have some personal experience with Airbnb's organizing.

00:18:14.520 i do i do that is a conversation for another day but i know quite a bit about it actually

00:18:22.600 yeah no it has been strange though i mean i i understand why they're doing it it's a it's a

00:18:27.780 good like for lack of a better word propaganda technique to get people to be on your side

00:18:34.040 and i mean i don't i don't fully agree with what they're saying but at the same time it is a

00:18:40.700 first amendment you know issue and and I it is um it is definitely it's definitely straight we're in

00:18:47.460 a very strange well I mean I don't know we're we're walking around talking about what is happening

00:18:53.080 kind of on a larger scale right now in the U.S. regarding freedom of speech and the fact that

00:18:57.320 there have been massive crackdowns on peaceful protests and freedom of speech happening across

00:19:04.200 the country on college campuses and, you know, beyond. But it is. Yeah, it is a weird situation

00:19:15.280 and it is TikTok, you know, not necessarily they don't have the best track record of honoring that

00:19:22.660 freedom of speech they're claiming to be fighting for right now. But maybe they're turning a page.

00:19:30.000 I don't know. So it does sound like that TikTok is going to be appealing this on First Amendment

00:19:36.980 kind of free speech grounds. According to the New York Times, the company is expected to argue that

00:19:41.780 a forced sale of TikTok could violate its users' free speech rights because a new owner could

00:19:47.100 potentially change the app's content policies and reshape what users are able to freely share

00:19:52.140 and communicate about on the platform. TikTok actually already has some precedent for fighting

00:19:57.660 bans in the courts using exactly this logic. And the platform has actually already won similar

00:20:03.140 First Amendment battles in the courts. Back when Trump was president, he tried to force a sale or

00:20:07.720 a ban of the app in 2020, but federal judges blocked that effort because it would have had

00:20:12.040 the effect of shutting down, quote, a platform for expressive activity. We talked about this

00:20:17.140 on the show a while back, but y'all might recall that Montana tried to ban TikTok in the state last

00:20:21.700 year because of the app's Chinese ownership, but a different federal judge ruled against that state

00:20:26.800 law for similar reasons. So far, there's actually only been one state-level TikTok ban that survived

00:20:33.140 a court challenge. It was super narrow. It only applied to state employees in Texas,

00:20:37.320 where the governor announced a ban of the app on state government devices and networks in 2022

00:20:41.880 because of the Chinese ownership and related data concerns. Professors at public universities

00:20:47.380 challenged that ban in the court, saying that it actually blocked them from being able to do

00:20:52.520 research into the app, which actually to me makes a lot of sense. A federal judge upheld the state

00:20:57.240 ban in December, finding that it was a reasonable restriction in light of Texas's concerns and that

00:21:02.620 narrow scope only impacting state employees. So that was the only time that one of these bans

00:21:08.760 was actually upheld in the court. So there is like a strong track record for TikTok being able

00:21:15.080 to successfully fight these bans in the courts. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I remember the Montana, when

00:21:22.200 we talked about the montana ban that did not work like and part of the reason it didn't work is it's

00:21:29.880 like it is like surprise surprise it's hard to like ban an app that people already have on their

00:21:35.980 phones or you can then go to another state or have a vpn or whatever to download um it's really

00:21:42.160 interesting because the the texas legislation is the only one that i'm like okay it is still

00:21:47.920 ridiculous but i i get where they're coming from with that like okay yeah sure if it's a the issue

00:21:53.440 is like we're worried about the chinese government spying on the u.s like yeah okay if it's if it's

00:22:00.460 government employees like that i think is more or less reasonable again i still don't agree with it

00:22:06.920 because i think it is not coming from any a it's not coming from a reality and then b it's it is

00:22:14.400 still I think in my opinion a freedom of speech uh infringement but the fact that like I feel like

00:22:20.800 and maybe this is me having like a like a rosy view of like the pre-Trump administration sort

00:22:27.620 of conversation around this but I feel like that is kind of would be the most extreme legislation

00:22:32.800 you would see around this for a really long time like that would kind of be the what would be like

00:22:37.760 the the more conservative viewpoint for a while and now it's just gone so far that it's like no

00:22:43.100 we're just going to completely ban this app. Yeah, that's actually what made me initially

00:22:48.840 pretty convinced that we would see a federal TikTok ban in our in 2024 was because how many

00:22:55.480 different states were banning TikTok from like government or public like public university

00:23:01.260 devices. I was like, oh, this is happening pretty swiftly. That seems to be like the like the

00:23:06.560 there seems to be a pretty quick vibe shift around this happening. That's what kind of

00:23:11.260 initially made me think like oh i think that's my this might actually be something that we see

00:23:15.080 yeah i think and i i think again like like i said i'm just just because i don't think it it's it's

00:23:20.680 a reasonable legislation because yeah the then that the element is when you're just saying

00:23:26.260 government you know employees or property or whatever that does also include yeah like public

00:23:31.260 universities and a lot of things that aren't necessarily like the government government

00:23:36.280 right yeah this is it has been a weird road to get here and here we are yeah and i think it gets

00:23:46.460 even weirder when you ask the question of like okay so a government will be forcing a sale to a

00:23:52.780 different owner that is not based in china is there a buyer like who would buy it and the answer to

00:23:59.760 that is like not clear tiktok has a pretty hefty price tag so it's like not clear who could even

00:24:06.680 afford it you know my initial thought was like oh elon musk yeah i feel like these guys don't

00:24:11.840 really have money like they say like either like you're a billionaire but all your money is tied

00:24:15.380 up in like lawsuits and shit no because my my immediate reaction was also that too i was like

00:24:20.000 oh no it's gonna happen again and i was like wait he's still paying off his bills for twitter like

00:24:25.740 we're good i think they should just we should like like they should just keep like bringing

00:24:31.600 the price down like you know supply and demand that whole thing i think i think we can get a 0.99

00:24:36.820 a there are no girls on the internet controlled tiktok by the end of the year if we oh my god 0.85

00:24:43.900 keep bringing the the price down that's my proposal virgin i think we should purchase tiktok

00:24:49.420 listeners let's pool our money actually i mean it's let's start a go fund me let's go it's funny

00:24:55.100 you say this just yesterday um one of my favorite disinformation reporters formerly of nbc ben

00:25:01.820 collins announced that him and his buddies this is going to sound like a joke but it's not they

00:25:07.120 pulled their money and they bought the onion so that that just happened something really yes i'm

00:25:13.420 i'm i hand to god look it up ben collins formerly nbc disinformation reporter it was announced

00:25:22.060 yesterday morning like oh geo media sold the onion it's not clear to who they sold it to and

00:25:27.500 i was like oh i've never heard of this this media conglomerate or like this investor group

00:25:30.820 wonder who that is later that evening ben collins was like yeah it was me and my friends we got

00:25:36.740 together and pulled our money so now i'm the ceo of the onion we're bringing it back we're giving

00:25:41.680 we're rehiring everybody we're allowing the staff to control it tune in everybody so that was like

00:25:47.760 like a rare piece of like in my book good media news like good good people pulling pull pulling

00:25:56.100 their money and actually buying a cool thing like it could happen it could happen i've quit i

00:26:00.700 misunderstood you for a second i thought you meant like just like he was doing disinformation

00:26:04.940 like oh no no he's a reporter so he's going again yeah because i was like oh no oh my god can you

00:26:11.340 imagine that oh my god oh my god if you're a diss if you're like a bad actor who spreads

00:26:17.460 disinformation and you buy a well-known satire site like the possibilities are endless that's 0.63

00:26:24.300 how we got x so it's so true like literally it was because of like the bablon b getting

00:26:32.260 bad or whatever oh my god um yeah no that's wow so yeah we could take tangody we could do it

00:26:40.780 own tiktok oh no it would all on subscribers you guys get a share of the i watched succession i

00:26:50.160 know how this stuff works yeah definitely we we could do it you know we're we're we're let's listen

00:26:56.680 if elon musk could do it joey you would you and i could certainly do it we could run we could run

00:27:01.180 tiktok i think we'd do really good we would definitely do better than elon musk oh i have

00:27:05.420 No doubt. No doubt. So probably not Elon Musk buying TikTok. A big American tech company like

00:27:13.900 Meta or Google, they might have the money to afford the hefty price tag, but they probably

00:27:20.040 would not be able to purchase it because of antitrust concerns. Right now, Meta is currently

00:27:24.760 fighting a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit that alleges that its purchase of WhatsApp and Instagram

00:27:29.600 violated U.S. antitrust law. So the FTC is actively seeking to break that company up.

00:27:34.940 So I don't think that Zuckerberg and Meta are going to like pile on there right now.

00:27:41.640 Back in 2020, there had been some lofty talks of maybe Microsoft with some involvement from the retailer Walmart partnering to buy TikTok.

00:27:51.480 This is back when Donald Trump was pushing for a sale.

00:27:53.820 But it sounds like those conversations like didn't really go anywhere.

00:27:56.680 It could be a private equity firm or a group of investors.

00:27:59.600 uh former trump administration treasury secretary steven mnuchin said that he wanted to put a group 0.99

00:28:06.140 of investors together to buy it like what a nightmare that would be like a trumper owning 0.77

00:28:12.520 tiktok elon musk owning twitter zuckerberg owning face like like oh god are like are 0.93

00:28:19.000 oh i don't even want to think about that that would be guys tumblr is still out there

00:28:24.740 yeah buy tumblr they're like nobody is like like i want someone to like

00:28:30.240 buy one like buy zanga and bring that back right like like like like my big instead of yeah big

00:28:38.020 instead of zagging well everybody's talking about these big platforms who's bought who's buying up

00:28:42.600 like the smaller platforms to bring those back remember visco what happened to that like i

00:28:48.300 remember um that was one of the first like aesthetics that was ever on my radar like the

00:28:53.240 VSCO girl aesthetic. Yeah, yeah. R.I.P. VSCO girl. R.I.P. VSCO girl. What happened to VSCO?

00:29:00.180 Yeah, she had her moment. She had her time. So the entire thing is just very messy and very

00:29:06.720 complicated, especially thinking through what it would actually look like logistically for TikTok

00:29:12.700 to divest from ByteDance. There was just a recent report in the Financial Times that spoke to

00:29:17.720 two dozen current and former employees that said that TikTok has only become more deeply

00:29:23.360 interwoven with ByteDance as tensions over the app's ownership have escalated. The legislation

00:29:28.560 that Biden signed prohibits any connection between TikTok and ByteDance after a sale.

00:29:33.500 Yet TikTok employees use ByteDance software in their communications. And the company's employees

00:29:38.860 are global with executives in Singapore, Dublin, Los Angeles, Mountain View, California, and elsewhere.

00:29:43.380 So it's unclear if ByteDance would actually even consider selling TikTok's entire global footprint or just its U.S.-based operations where it has about 7,000 employees.

00:29:54.980 Like what it would actually logistically look like for ByteDance to just sort of tether its U.S.-based operations for TikTok, it's like unclear.

00:30:04.120 It seems like it would be pretty complicated.

00:30:05.480 And because a big source of concern is specifically TikTok's algorithm that controls and dictates what American audiences see, there was some talk of TikTok maybe trying to move forward in the U.S. with a version of TikTok that is not controlled by an algorithm to see if that changes things.

00:30:22.840 But that would also be pretty complicated.

00:30:24.860 The app's recommendation algorithm, which figures out what users like and serves up content, is really a key part of TikTok.

00:30:31.720 It's kind of like what makes TikTok TikTok.

00:30:33.580 But Chinese engineers work on that algorithm, which ByteDance owns. So untethering all of that 1.00

00:30:40.660 to move forward in the U.S. might be kind of tricky. I also read yesterday that ByteDance

00:30:45.920 said that they would actually prefer to shut TikTok down in the U.S. rather than sell it

00:30:50.680 if the Chinese company exhausts all legal options to fight legislation to ban the platform. So they

00:30:55.980 would just be like, oh, we would rather just not operate in the U.S., shut it down there,

00:31:00.700 and keep going and honestly like you might be thinking like oh that would be a bad financial

00:31:05.760 move but i believe that that's only 25 percent of their revenue like i don't think that tiktok

00:31:11.160 is a huge part of the a bite dance entire portfolio yeah and they're also i mean not to

00:31:19.160 diminish the like buying power of the u.s and how like important that is on a kind of economic scale

00:31:25.880 But also like there are many other countries out there that probably would continue to use TikTok.

00:31:31.860 And I don't I don't know. I feel like they're going to be fine.

00:31:34.600 Yeah, I feel I feel exactly the same way.

00:31:36.360 And, you know, something that you were saying earlier is that, you know, Mark Warner and his statement was like, oh, well, this is I don't want people to cynically think we're just like in the bag for big tech.

00:31:46.740 But this is a big win for American big tech companies.

00:31:50.840 I always bristle at the framing of this as like a business story when it's so much more.

00:31:56.940 But it does need to be said that Facebook has been trying to destroy TikTok for kind

00:32:01.380 of a while.

00:32:02.360 Folks might recall that Facebook reportedly tried to buy TikTok's predecessor, the lip

00:32:07.320 syncing app Musical.ly back in 2016, but ByteDance ended up acquiring it instead, and that became

00:32:12.980 TikTok.

00:32:13.540 So they tried to buy it, didn't work.

00:32:16.600 When that didn't work, Facebook did that thing that tech companies do, which is like, I will create a similar but less good version of my competitor.

00:32:25.820 So in 2020, Facebook launches Reels, which was, you know, was like that short form video app.

00:32:31.860 For a while, it was essentially just like identical to TikTok.

00:32:35.780 Only the content that you would see there was like a couple of weeks old.

00:32:38.580 like my friends who didn't have tiktok they'd always be like oh look at this reel i saw it

00:32:43.060 it will be like the thing that the thing that was like hot on tiktok like a week ago you know

00:32:46.300 what i mean right yeah i i and i like a group channel instagram with a couple of my friends

00:32:52.200 that are all lovely and this is not a dig at them but they will often send videos and i'm

00:32:56.740 like i saw that a month ago but thank you for sharing it again uh joey thinks your reels are

00:33:05.180 whack i think i'm sorry i'm calling you behind the times or whatever uh but nobody responds to

00:33:13.340 my tiktok dms so that's what you got so reels has grown pretty steadily thanks to its aggressive

00:33:20.180 integration with instagram like when you scroll instagram you're basically just like getting

00:33:24.780 served real so they definitely have done some trickery there to like force us all to consume

00:33:30.020 reels whether we want to or not whether it's against our will or not uh tiktok has maintained

00:33:34.840 its hold on younger users while also making inroads with adults. For a long time, people

00:33:39.420 talked about TikTok as like, oh, the dancing app for kids. That was never even really true even

00:33:45.220 back then. But it is certainly not true now. The majority of people on TikTok, it's young people

00:33:50.620 and it's people in their 30s. And so it's this idea that it's just an app that's popular with

00:33:55.820 kids. It's just not true. Right. Also, again, I'm Gen Z and I'm in my 20s. There are plenty of

00:34:04.040 people that are Gen Z that are like young adults now. Yeah. Also use TikTok. Absolutely. So we did

00:34:11.940 a podcast episode about this with TikTok researcher Abby Richards, but basically Facebook's big thing

00:34:18.940 here was really successfully demonizing TikTok. Mark Zuckerberg talked about TikTok in a speech

00:34:25.580 he made at Georgetown University in 2019. He said, while our services like WhatsApp are used by

00:34:31.240 protesters and activists everywhere due to strong encryption and privacy protections on tiktok

00:34:37.000 the chinese app growing quickly around the world mentions of these protests are censored even in

00:34:42.720 the u.s is that the internet we want which first of all if you are a protester you're probably

00:34:48.200 using signal and this is me like again i'm not being paid by signal if you're a protester or

00:34:52.580 an activist use signal don't use whatsapp i don't know anybody that is like i like i'm like out like

00:34:57.460 like an activist like really really out there activist like that uses whatsapp to talk about

00:35:02.860 like organizing also yeah like wow uh famous famous supporter of protesters and activists

00:35:11.860 everywhere mark zuckerberg yes friend to the activist friend to the protester mark zuckerberg

00:35:19.880 freedom of speech advocate i what that it yeah that's ridiculous and of course it's not like

00:35:26.900 a platform like facebook or threads would ever suppress content about politics or protest or

00:35:32.180 social movements like they would never like what they would never do that there definitely was not

00:35:36.060 a graphic going around instagram that i reposted a lot of my friends reposted about how to go into

00:35:41.400 your settings and turn off the automatic thing that like limited political quote-unquote political

00:35:47.540 content on everybody's you know for you page or or whatever it's called on instagram their

00:35:53.120 their instagram stories or whatever uh that just coincidentally is happening now and absolutely

00:35:58.980 has nothing to do with uh anything happening uh in real life in in in in college campuses right

00:36:07.020 now and you know these protesters that mark zuckerberg is like best friends with they

00:36:11.700 definitely definitely this has nothing to do with that yeah absolutely so you know we talked about

00:36:18.380 this on the show before, but the Washington Post in 2022 reported that Facebook had been

00:36:24.000 paying this major Republican consulting firm called Targeted Victory to push local stories

00:36:30.180 and op-eds that really painted TikTok as this danger to society and a danger to young people

00:36:36.220 specifically. They talked about all of these dangerous viral TikTok trends, many of which

00:36:41.520 happen to actually have started or been spread on Facebook. So it was just this tactic to be like,

00:36:46.920 TikTok is so dangerous when the things that they were calling out, Facebook either also spread or

00:36:53.560 were the originators of. A lot of these narratives really caught on with lawmakers who then raised

00:36:59.320 them in congressional hearings. There was also this piece in Politico about how TikTok kind of

00:37:03.460 misplayed the Washington lobbyist game, counting on their large number of users to prevent Congress

00:37:08.980 from actually taking action while not meaningfully responding to these national security concerns

00:37:13.960 that lawmakers are bringing up until it was kind of too late.

00:37:16.640 I do think that TikTok, because so many people use it

00:37:19.320 and because people feel strongly about it,

00:37:21.600 I think that they really relied on that,

00:37:24.960 like, oh, that alone is going to be enough

00:37:26.940 to defend us from these claims

00:37:30.920 and to keep a strong footing in the United States.

00:37:33.260 I think they perhaps misplayed their hand there.

00:37:39.860 More after a quick break.

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00:38:29.420 That's 844-844-iHeart. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your

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00:39:36.900 Let's get right back into it.

00:39:41.680 So I want to talk about something that you brought up, which is like what I actually

00:39:45.640 think is going on here.

00:39:47.060 So we've talked a ton on the podcast about how I think that lawmakers like want to look

00:39:52.640 tough on big tech while also remaining very cozy financially with American big tech companies.

00:39:58.660 I also think that they want to look tough on China.

00:40:01.540 So this is sort of like a two birds, one stone kind of thing.

00:40:04.040 But I also think that increasingly, this is really about young people and support for

00:40:09.440 Palestine.

00:40:10.740 The Washington Post has a really interesting piece that we'll put in the show notes, basically

00:40:14.340 breaking this down.

00:40:15.280 They write, when congressional Republicans this month repeated their long-running calls

00:40:19.380 for a nationwide ban on TikTok, they highlighted a data point that they said was proof of the

00:40:24.140 app's sinister underpinnings.

00:40:26.080 The number of TikTok videos with hashtag free Palestine is dramatically higher than those

00:40:31.140 with hashtag standwithisrael.

00:40:32.640 The Gap, they said, offered evidence that the app, owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, was being used to boost propaganda and brainwash American viewers.

00:40:43.660 So, like, I think that's really kind of a big piece of this, why we are seeing this anti-TikTok legislation being bolstered, particularly right now.

00:40:56.920 But as that Washington Post piece points out, Facebook and Instagram, TikTok's U.S.-based rivals, show a remarkably similar gap. On Facebook, the free Palestine hashtag is found on more than 11 million posts, 39 times more than those with hashtag standwithisrael. On Instagram, the pro-Palestinian hashtag is found on 6 million posts, 26 times more than the pro-Israel hashtag.

00:41:20.160 So I think that what's going on here is that I think lawmakers are seeing people being supportive of Palestine, particularly young people, and they're like, what explains this? It has to be TikTok. It has to be foreign meddling or manipulation. It has to be like the Chinese government sowing chaos and confusion and manipulation with our youth. And I really think that is a big part of why we are seeing these renewed efforts to ban the app.

00:41:47.600 Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I think talking about this, too, and this is this has been an ongoing conversation is that there there have like the the political establishment and kind of like the powers that be for a while have been very shocked by this fact that.

00:42:04.740 quote unquote, all of a sudden, I'm not, I don't think that's actually the case, but like

00:42:10.780 all of a sudden, all of these young people are being a little bit more skeptical about the kind

00:42:17.640 of like established narrative of what is happening in Palestine and what's happening in Gaza. And I

00:42:24.420 think, you know, I think a lot of politicians and a lot of these officials are, have been sort of

00:42:33.060 surprised and taken aback by the protests i again i don't think they should be because i think like

00:42:38.400 a if you look at history there is a like a lot of people especially with the protests happening

00:42:45.320 right now have brought up like kent state and brought up a lot of the vietnam protests and

00:42:49.380 sort of the similarities it's like there isn't it's not like there isn't a president for this

00:42:53.240 and then also like from their perspective it's like oh it's the these apps that are doing

00:42:58.800 propaganda, but it's like, no, a lot of what is actually happening is just that there are videos

00:43:04.720 of what's happening on the ground in Gaza that are going around social media. There are, you know,

00:43:09.840 families that are trapped. There are people that are on the ground there. There are reporters that

00:43:13.720 are on the ground there that are able to get that information to a wider audience because of social

00:43:17.580 media and are able to, you know, there are other kind of options other than just sort of these

00:43:23.380 legacy media companies that are providing information about what's happening and that

00:43:28.840 is making a lot of people question the sort of narrative that they've been told about the

00:43:33.260 situation that is making a lot of people want to look more into these and i and i think for a lot

00:43:38.820 of people like the the patterns are sort of clicking it is sort of like making sense that

00:43:42.960 like hey you know this is it this isn't like a new thing this is a you know i don't know i was

00:43:48.320 growing up in sort of like the aftermath of the like Iraq and Afghanistan wars and like it's

00:43:54.320 interesting like people keep pointing to Vietnam but like that was really not that long ago like

00:43:59.820 you know the the Iraq war going into the Iraq war over a like complete lie was not that long ago

00:44:07.580 like people remember that people are responding to that young people remember that because like

00:44:12.700 again like myself a lot of us like grew up in the aftermath of that um i will say i think a lot of

00:44:18.960 this this argument drives me insane like i'm not surprised by it because i do think it is like the

00:44:25.000 easiest route for the a lot of these politicians to go is just the like oh it's just it's the kids

00:44:30.200 that are wrong or they they don't they're just you know brainwashed there's no way that these

00:44:36.720 young people that are studying at universities and are paying attention to what's happening in

00:44:42.980 the news and are putting together you know the puzzle pieces of like hey what we're seeing isn't

00:44:49.100 new a lot of this has happened before and has happened repeatedly uh in different contexts like

00:44:54.040 there's kind of this idea that like oh they don't they don't understand anything they just don't

00:44:57.840 they must be being brainwashed that's the only explanation because if there's any like any other 0.99

00:45:05.620 explanation would force me to acknowledge the fact that like yeah a lot of this is very fucked 0.98

00:45:12.620 up and a lot of this is is like you know like like it's easier to kind of be patronizing to 0.68

00:45:19.280 people than it is to give them credit for how smart and thoughtful people actually can be and 0.98

00:45:23.840 the fact that you know what is happening right now is very very clearly wrong and fucked up

00:45:29.600 and people are not happy about it um and i think yeah it's easier to say say like oh well there's 0.94

00:45:37.400 being brainwashed let's stick with the status quo than it is to actually want to make any change

00:45:40.940 yeah and i think like that like that's why that statement from mark warner hit me so weird because

00:45:48.140 it's like ultimately i think that you're exactly right these these arguments to me sound very

00:45:54.260 limiting to young people. They sound very condescending to young people. It makes it

00:45:59.160 seem like young people are not smart enough or with it enough to look around at what's going on

00:46:03.500 and make an assessment when they absolutely are. It just feels very callous to me. And I think like

00:46:09.420 given that we're in an election year and we're hearing lots of elected officials and politicians

00:46:13.320 who want your vote, like signaling like, oh yeah, we want the youth vote. It's like they're saying

00:46:18.300 we want y'all's vote, but we don't think you're smart enough to understand what's going on in

00:46:22.840 the world and we're also not going to listen exactly like i mean i a lot of people have

00:46:28.200 pointed out like calling for a ceasefire is the bare minimum and what the biden administration

00:46:34.280 just finally like made a statement kind of calling for a ceasefire like a couple weeks ago right

00:46:40.180 like it's i i think like this is they they want they talk a lot of talk about how important the

00:46:47.980 youth vote is or and how important like marginalized groups are or whatever to this election and then

00:46:53.880 they're doing nothing to actually address what people are asking for and what people are and

00:46:59.200 and like yeah no like i'm sorry if you if you are actively suppressing the the freedom of speech of

00:47:07.080 the group that you are trying to get to vote for you and then you're like to the point where you

00:47:10.580 are sending like the cops to go mass arrest people for peacefully protesting like like either you're 0.99

00:47:18.840 just stupid and short-sighted or like you want to lose like I don't know what to tell you at that 0.99

00:47:23.700 point yeah and something else that you said is that this idea that oh well certainly this is 1.00

00:47:30.680 coming from manipulation via tiktok like this is young people are feeling this way all of a sudden

00:47:37.320 And that's just not true. Young Americans have consistently shown support for Palestinians in Pew research surveys, including in a poll in 2014, four years before TikTok ever launched in the United States.

00:47:49.180 And so this idea that like, oh, it's just TikTok manipulating young people with their algorithm.

00:47:56.240 How do you account for the fact that younger people have consistently shown support for Palestinians even before TikTok was ever a thing here?

00:48:01.980 exactly exactly i mean i don't like i i will say especially as somebody who was

00:48:07.480 was in college before tiktok really took off but like well like kind of kind of like literally

00:48:16.560 like right before that time like this what it wasn't like this again it wasn't like this

00:48:20.560 appeared out of nowhere these were conversations that were happening um these were like there were

00:48:26.580 efforts to for the camp the college that i went to there were a lot of major efforts to to get

00:48:34.260 them to divest from you know fossil fuel companies and also like a lot of these companies that were

00:48:40.500 you know making weapons and were like you know actively do it the the companies that are that

00:48:47.840 are doing the stuff that is now being you know brought like now it now i think has reached a

00:48:53.120 wider audience like that it's again it's not like it came out of nowhere and I think anybody that

00:48:59.000 is like paid attention to the news or to current events or to like like contemporary like politics

00:49:06.420 or like global politics could tell you that and could tell you that none of this is like new and

00:49:11.400 none of this is just like appearing out of nowhere but you know it's a very convenient narrative for

00:49:16.520 the people that want to keep up the status quo that this is just popped out of nowhere and it's

00:49:21.900 tiktok's fault clearly yeah and i think it really i mean i i i was there for a lot of that i'm i i

00:49:29.340 got my start as somebody who was like a leftist with campus organizing like that was like

00:49:36.200 like i was in high school when i was in i think 10th grade when 9-11 happened and anti-war organizing

00:49:46.080 was just like that like that's when that became a thing for me and so it you know i was in high

00:49:51.440 school when all that was popping off and I was just starting like it was like my my sort of

00:49:55.660 political or like radical consciousness awakening and I was like the exact right age for it I will

00:50:01.940 not sit here and tell you that I had the perfect practice that everything I ever did was like

00:50:07.920 well thought out smart like logical blah blah blah I mean I was 19 and I was

00:50:13.260 at 19 you weren't like a perfect political like yeah i was 19 and i was high all the time and i

00:50:22.260 guess i say that to say like so for me it was anti-war organizing it was um school of the

00:50:28.180 america's watch organizing like like i remember yes that was a little bit of a yeah that was a

00:50:32.780 that was a big part of uh what a what an institution i i'm i am morbidly fascinated

00:50:38.580 by the school of the americas and all the very very terrible things somebody needs to do a

00:50:43.840 podcast on it because it is wild i think yeah yeah there was i think they did a there was a

00:50:49.420 behind the bastards episode about about school of the americas in particular that was that was

00:50:54.100 one of the things that got me like on some research spiral about it but yeah nice plug for our our

00:50:59.920 podcast cousins over at cool zone um but yeah i say this to say that it's hard for me to look at

00:51:07.700 what's happening right now on college campuses and also look at the conversation happening around

00:51:12.900 TikTok and not be really concerned like I young people especially need to be able to express

00:51:20.380 themselves politically and to have places where they can learn about their political

00:51:25.180 selves and like express that I'm like like I would not be who I am today if I did not have that space

00:51:31.020 to figure it out and to figure out what that looks like yeah I also want to add because I

00:51:35.100 i think bridget i think we've had like very similar experiences with this and and i something

00:51:40.220 that i know has come up and i i'm not going to say what the the this group is because i don't

00:51:45.060 want to give them any more attention but there is a a group that targets and doxes students that uh

00:51:52.760 students and and university faculty that do that support palestine or support or they have a very

00:51:59.160 broad definition of what being quote unquote anti-israel or in their words like anti-semitic

00:52:05.880 is uh i like literally had a jewish history professor who like called herself a zionist

00:52:11.760 was a liberal zionist and was targeted by this group but i know this was something that this

00:52:16.580 particular organization like i had a couple of like older people in my life that recently found

00:52:22.320 out about them just because of some like you know obviously they've been doing a lot of

00:52:25.540 doxing lately but I remember having a conversation with um my dad actually about this and he was like

00:52:31.180 so shocked that this was happening and he was like this is awful like I can't believe that like

00:52:35.580 they're targeting students and I was like yeah no like I have a lot of friends that were doxed by

00:52:41.620 them when we were like 19 like we were like we were still teenagers like that was and like I

00:52:47.800 think like you were saying like I think you know obviously I like I I support the protesters I'm

00:52:54.220 standing here and I agree with the protesters even if you don't you should be supporting people's

00:53:01.920 like ability to use college as an experience to like explore different political ideas and

00:53:08.760 realities and learn about there's always this big you know like the right loves to throw a fit over

00:53:13.920 like oh like these like liberal campuses are in a in a bubble and they don't know the real world

00:53:18.940 like no no no actually the point of college a lot of times is to meet people that have different

00:53:23.320 experiences than you and to like form these different and learn about these different ideas

00:53:26.580 and form these different ideas and like we should not be at a place where simply trying to learn

00:53:33.440 about other issues or trying to learn about different perspectives or whatever at like if

00:53:38.000 that's what you're doing or like advocating for causes you care about like that should not be

00:53:42.140 reason to be doxed like before you could even legally drink like that is that that's not

00:53:49.660 something that should be happening yes and like i mean like i we have a word i'm i'm in the works

00:53:57.500 on a whole episode about this this might be an unpopular opinion but it is how i feel

00:54:01.520 having adults who might not even have a real connection to university campuses

00:54:09.840 saying things like oh if a college freshman says xyz thing that is supportive of palestine

00:54:18.420 we should put their name

00:54:20.760 and their information on a truck

00:54:22.660 and drive it around their community

00:54:24.620 and make sure that nobody ever hires

00:54:26.780 them for the rest of their life

00:54:28.280 who is that helping?

00:54:30.280 I think that it's an environment that

00:54:32.460 the conversation around

00:54:34.100 the campus protests that are

00:54:36.600 happening right now

00:54:37.560 it's just really scary to me. I guess I'll just put it that way

00:54:40.760 It's really scary. I think

00:54:42.180 none of this is new is a lot of what we're talking about

00:54:44.640 I think that the advent of social media

00:54:46.380 and the fact that

00:54:47.160 like there obviously like as we're talking about there are a lot of positives and we're you know

00:54:52.420 having this conversation to say that the TikTok ban is not going to be a good solution to all of

00:54:59.180 what's happening like there are a lot of positives in social media but I do think there is also a lot

00:55:02.940 of negatives and the fact that because it is so much more visible the reaction is going to be so

00:55:08.160 much stronger and there is going to be and yeah yeah and I again I 100% agree with you and like

00:55:14.800 like nobody a what these students are advocating for is they're advocating for peace they're 0.86

00:55:22.040 advocating for like the bare minimum like stop the fucking violence like there's so many so many 0.91

00:55:28.240 people have died this is insane and but regardless of what is happening regardless of what they're 0.90

00:55:35.660 fucking protesting regardless of what is being spoken about nobody should be yeah nobody should 0.85

00:55:40.520 be doxed. Nobody should have their life potentially ruined or attempted to be ruined because of 0.99

00:55:46.700 something they said when they were 19 or 20 or whatever. Exactly. And folding it into the TikTok

00:55:51.860 conversation, if young people are not able to express themselves politically on their college

00:55:57.960 campuses at college, and then the digital spaces where they would do that, Twitter, you can't

00:56:04.200 really do that effectively right now. If TikTok is banned, I just worry that we are losing both

00:56:10.380 IRL and digitally places where people, particularly young people, are able to safely show up to

00:56:16.300 express their political beliefs, understand their political beliefs, refine and sharpen their

00:56:21.000 political beliefs. And that's not good. I really see these two things as related. The fact that

00:56:26.000 we have all of this suppression and crackdown on campus protest, while also the places and spaces

00:56:31.900 where you would digitally be able to show up

00:56:33.720 and do that are also being undermined.

00:56:36.120 I just, it just is,

00:56:37.420 I can't help but see those two things

00:56:38.640 as happening together.

00:56:40.500 Yeah, definitely.

00:56:41.940 And I think a lot of the voices

00:56:43.980 that are talking about this moment in time,

00:56:46.260 I think are like really leading

00:56:50.460 with a lot of anxiety and sort of like,

00:56:53.360 I don't want to say concern trolling,

00:56:54.680 but like a lot of anxiety around youth

00:56:57.480 and social media and like youth are miserable.

00:57:00.280 They're supporting Palestine

00:57:01.200 because they're on their phones which are making them miserable i just i just feel like we're not 0.95

00:57:04.600 having good substantive conversations rising to the top about what's going on in this very

00:57:10.560 particular moment in time yeah actually off of that point not to sound conspiratorial or whatever

00:57:16.520 but i think it's interesting there were a lot of like articles and stuff that were coming out that

00:57:19.740 i that i do think were very valid i do think make a good point but they're about this fact that like

00:57:23.380 and and again as somebody who is kind of like the the beginning of gen z i lived through a lot of

00:57:29.320 this but it was like all of these young people are sort of beginning to um you know question

00:57:34.780 whether having iPhones all the time or having smartphones all the time is actually good for us

00:57:40.220 or like having like growing up with this access to the internet and social media from such a young

00:57:44.160 age was a good thing like maybe it was actually sort of harmful and now we're seeing this next

00:57:48.400 generation go through it and you know there were all there were a lot of articles that were coming

00:57:51.400 out about like here's this group of like 20 somethings that have decided to get like Nokia

00:57:57.560 phones instead of like yeah yeah yeah and like all of that and I don't like I think that's great

00:58:02.320 I totally agree and I will say like again as somebody who is spends a lot of time online and

00:58:06.000 a lot of time the internet like I definitely I need to detach a lot I see a lot of the negatives

00:58:10.680 too but at the same time it's like I still believe like and I mean I get like this is a lot of the

00:58:15.960 philosophy of the show is like the internet it's a thing that exists the thing that it is a tool

00:58:19.460 it can be a tool for bad awful things it could also be a tool for organizing and activism and

00:58:27.140 you know changing the world to be a or trying to make the world a better place like it can be

00:58:32.480 and there it also can be a place for community it can be like i have i've found a lot of community

00:58:37.440 online spaces i think like just just inherently demonizing the idea of like the internet and and

00:58:47.080 social media and whatever part of that is what gets us to things like this where then it's like

00:58:52.440 but then we can't even look at the fact that no like social media in this case like

00:58:57.140 again if we're talking about like the protests happening for Palestine right now social media

00:59:01.780 has been a really really important tool for organizing and for getting information out

00:59:05.220 there it hasn't been the only thing that has been important there are also like a lot of other you

00:59:09.820 know actions that need to be done and things that need to be done and whatever but you know like

00:59:15.000 I'm not saying that just posting a bunch of graphics on your Instagram is is like you know

00:59:19.840 peak activism or whatever but also it is like it has been a very important tool of getting

00:59:25.060 information out there and getting and helping to organize these protests. And I think if we,

00:59:29.680 if we forget that, that's just going to end up hurting all of us. And I think that's kind of

00:59:36.060 the direction we're going with this legislation. That's scary. And I think it, it just adds to

00:59:41.600 this feeling of just loss of faith in democracy and institutions. And I think that like,

00:59:50.480 particularly right now that like people are feeling so checked out from

00:59:55.700 democracy that I, I, I just don't, I don't think we need it.

00:59:59.980 I don't think that people need any other reason to be even more disengaged

01:00:03.220 and checked out. Um,

01:00:04.600 V spear from under the desk news to we've had on the show before you can 0.91

01:00:08.280 think of V they're kind of like the Walter Cronkite of Tik TOK. Um, 0.83

01:00:11.340 they made a really, yeah, like V is everywhere. Um,

01:00:14.740 V made a really interesting point. They said,

01:00:16.660 the consequence is not that Tik TOK gets banned.

01:00:19.180 it's that the American public loses faith even more in the institution of government than they

01:00:24.400 already have. And I think that really, for me, like sums up how I think a lot of folks are

01:00:30.140 feeling. Like I've seen people say things like, oh, they'll ban TikTok before they ban guns,

01:00:33.700 or just like how weird it is to be having these conversations, like seeing conversations where

01:00:40.000 it's like, how close to death does someone who was pregnant have to be before their doctor can

01:00:44.960 abort their non-viable pregnancy it just feels wrong when we have all of these other really huge

01:00:51.200 issues happening to be like oh and then they're gonna ban tiktok like that's what they're doing

01:00:55.320 like i could understand how somebody watching what watching this moment in time it's just like

01:00:59.680 that's it i have lost what faith i had in the institution of government because of this moment

01:01:05.440 like i understand that the way that people are responding in this moment yeah and i mean like i

01:01:10.640 said before i think for all the hand-wringing the biden administration is doing right now or

01:01:15.580 the democratic party is doing about like oh my god like we're losing young people or not having

01:01:20.680 young people engaging or we're losing the sort of like loyalty quote-unquote of like all these

01:01:26.260 marginalized groups that you know previously would have been a big part of our uh voter base

01:01:34.380 for all the hand-wringing and for all the complaining about that they're not doing

01:01:39.700 anything to make to motivate people to want to support them and they're not doing anything to

01:01:45.640 like actually show that yeah like that we live in a functioning democracy like this is a like

01:01:51.860 this is very clearly a sign that that is that is not what's happening but this is not a this this

01:01:59.780 is an example of democracy not functioning the way that it is supposed to and i i think like

01:02:04.400 you can't be having that sort of like moral high ground or yeah like hand wringing about it if then

01:02:10.200 you're not actually going to put in the work to to to make these systems work the way that you

01:02:14.900 you claim that they are supposed to work exactly and then folding in the breakdown of these tools

01:02:22.780 that have been used to allow people who are marginalized to build platforms and express

01:02:27.640 themselves and build political power you know like if there's no tiktok and there's no real twitter

01:02:34.120 and meta is deprioritizing political and social issues content on their platforms where will we

01:02:39.800 get the next black lives matter where will we get the next me too how will we like build power and

01:02:44.940 mobilize like i am a person who believes that marginalized people will always find a way like

01:02:50.820 we'll always make a way out of no way that is what we do but i just don't want to get into this place

01:02:55.640 where we have to keep rebuilding we have to keep building new platforms one platform goes poof and

01:03:00.720 And so we have to spend all of this energy and time,

01:03:04.280 resources that we know are not infinite,

01:03:07.020 they're finite, rebuilding and redoing this.

01:03:09.760 Like it just, after a while, it gets really tired

01:03:12.320 and like people get burnt out.

01:03:13.660 And I just think like, yeah,

01:03:15.880 we're just in this very particular moment

01:03:17.580 that I really see a lot of those,

01:03:19.320 a lot of those chickens coming home to roost.

01:03:21.700 And this is why I think we need to revive Tumblr

01:03:24.740 and we all need to go back to Tumblr

01:03:26.400 and start using Tumblr again.

01:03:27.760 uh but although that's not also not a very functional website um this is why there are 1.00

01:03:34.640 no girls on the internet community needs to band together and buy tiktok tiktok exactly

01:03:39.960 support our gofundme yeah i'll i'll send the link around for folks to donate and we'll we'll get a

01:03:48.020 google doc going i'm i'm like the your organizer friend who's like as soon as the ideas floated

01:03:53.140 They're like, I will circulate the Google Docs.

01:03:55.540 We'll get our content moderation policies together in that Google Doc.

01:03:59.560 Joey, thank you so much for being here.

01:04:01.540 This was like, when this news came down, I was like, I cannot wait to find out what Joey thinks.

01:04:05.960 You're my TikTok correspondent in a lot of ways.

01:04:12.060 Where can folks keep up with you?

01:04:14.860 You can find me on Twitter or Instagram at PatNotPratt. 1.00

01:04:19.860 That's P-A-T-T-N-O-T-P-R-A-T-T. 0.86

01:04:23.140 um i also want to give a shout out to if you like listening to there are no girls on the internet or 0.99

01:04:30.200 any other of our iheart media uh podcast and you want to support the fantastic producers that work

01:04:38.420 super hard on those shows you should check out the iheart podcast union socials uh you can find us

01:04:44.980 on twitter and hopefully by the time this episode drops also on instagram at uh iheart

01:04:52.880 pod union that's yeah iheart pod union hopefully you can find it you'll figure it out you'll figure

01:05:03.180 it out um i'm not gonna tell you guys my tiktok but if you find it come say hi i don't know it's

01:05:09.300 a lot of me like talking about like whatever piece of media i've hyper fixated on for like

01:05:16.420 a couple of months span so i don't know if you want to yeah right now it's been like dc comics

01:05:23.080 so uh if anybody is interested you're welcome to try to find that but i will not be telling you

01:05:27.520 what my my username is uh i could see you having a podcast that's just called like joey's recent

01:05:34.700 hyper fixation i i heard if you want to green light that right let's make it happen

01:05:41.720 i feel like that's what i oh yeah and then i i will that that's kind of been my repertoire on

01:05:48.760 stuff mom never told you another show that i am occasionally on is usually been hey there's this

01:05:53.820 thing that i just like have been obsessed with lately can i come talk about it um but i will be

01:05:58.400 having an episode coming up coming out on sminty or on stuff mom never told you soon about uh the

01:06:06.240 the swifties and some of the the darker side of of online fandom uh don't have a set date for that

01:06:15.000 but i will update you guys when i do i cannot wait you'll be here when that episode drops you

01:06:20.260 we'll you'll we'll be discussing it like have a whole like conversation about this please we

01:06:25.680 didn't do like a round table i was yeah like a swifty round table a swifty round table

01:06:32.180 i feel like i like i'm not i i'm not a swifty i i i mean you know this about me i've gone from like

01:06:40.000 not loving taylor swift to being like oh actually i i'm like i'm neutral on her to now being like

01:06:47.020 i don't know anything about her music but like i would like to be a swifty and include me in

01:06:51.580 your community people uh i my thoughts on taylor swift are i love her music i grew up listening

01:06:57.680 to her music she uh has been one of my top artists on spotify for like forever uh the fandom

01:07:05.100 concerns me a lot uh but uh i i do think she herself i i understand a lot of the criticism

01:07:15.760 and i i support i i don't i i i i think there's a lot of of her as a figure is an interesting

01:07:22.240 person i try to keep her separate from the music that that's why keeping the art separate from the

01:07:27.040 artist, I think, situation is Taylor Swift. But yeah, I don't know. The latest thing is a bunch

01:07:34.880 of Swifties are mad at me because I said that one of the lines in one of her most recent songs 0.97

01:07:39.780 sounded kind of dumb. And I apparently don't understand how metaphors work with the consensus

01:07:47.200 in the comments section. But yeah. Well, that's a great teaser for Swiftie convos to come. Joey,

01:07:55.540 Thank you for being here.

01:07:57.100 Of course.

01:07:57.920 Thanks for having me, Bridget.

01:07:59.380 And thanks to all of you for listening.

01:08:01.300 I will see you on the internet.

01:08:06.300 If you're looking for ways to support the show,

01:08:08.480 check out our merch store at tangoti.com slash store.

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01:08:14.260 or just want to say hi?

01:08:15.720 You can reach us at hello at tangoti.com.

01:08:18.000 You can also find transcripts for today's episode

01:08:19.820 at tangoti.com.

01:08:21.420 There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me,

01:08:23.280 Bridget Todd.

01:08:24.180 It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

01:08:26.780 Edited by Joey Pat.

01:08:28.620 Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.

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There Are No Girls on the Internet - April 27, 2024

TikTok ban signed into law. What happens next？

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