ICYMI: WTH is Tik Tok So Dangerous? Klon Kitchen on How the Chinese Communist Party is Reading Your Keystrokes and Collecting Your Data
What the Hell Is Going On
AEI Podcasts
4.4 • 633 Ratings
🗓️ 5 April 2023
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s spring break, and your kids might have more time on their hands… so we are revisiting one of our best and increasingly relevant episodes.
Over a third of Americans spend hours every day on an app that directly feeds their data to the Chinese government. TikTok, owned by Chinese parent company Bytedance, is constantly collecting reams of data on its users, from GPS to keystrokes to outer-app monitoring, and even encrypted data that might be useful someday. But aren’t these D.C. elite problems — worrying only for those who plan to work in intelligence or government someday? Nope. The implications of China’s TikTok-enabled reach touch almost every American. Personal privacy aside, our national security is at immediate risk. The Chinese Communist Party exerts a measure of control over more than one-third of Americans. Are we going to continue to cede our sovereignty to Xi Jinping? Or will the U.S. Government shut down TikTok once and for all?
These questions with Klon Kitchen, a senior fellow at AEI. He specializes in national security, defense technology, innovation, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence. Previously, he was a director at the Heritage Foundation and was the national security advisor to Sen. Ben Sasse. He has worked at the NCTC, the National Counterterrorism Center, in the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence, and at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi everyone. This is Danielle Pletka. We are playing on in case you missed it podcast from last year on the |
| 0:08.4 | question that would be on everybody's lips if Donald Trump weren't actually on everybody's lips instead. |
| 0:14.9 | And that is the question of the Chinese app TikTok. Is it going to be banned? We think so, but it hasn't been banned yet. We had an outstanding |
| 0:24.5 | interview with Klon Kitchen talking all about the app, everything it does, everything you need to be |
| 0:31.2 | really afraid of, and the reasons you need to delete it right now. The reason that we're playing you an older podcast is because this is spring break week. |
| 0:41.9 | Marcus Benedict's daughter's national hockey championships, and many of our guests have been away. |
| 0:49.4 | So we'll be back at our regularly scheduled time next week. |
| 0:52.9 | We're really looking forward to sharing an |
| 0:55.4 | outstanding podcast with you. And in the meantime, for those of you who celebrate Passover, |
| 1:01.9 | hope you have an enjoyable feast. And for those of you who celebrate Easter, very happy holidays. |
| 1:08.6 | See you soon. |
| 1:09.5 | This podcast is brought to you by the American Enterprise Institute. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, review, and share. Thanks for listening. Here's our show. What the hell's going on? What the hell is going on? What the hell is going on? I don't know what the hell is talking about. You don't have to know what the hell is on it. What hell's the matter with these guys? We don't know what's going on. |
| 1:28.9 | What hell's going on? |
| 1:30.0 | Who in God's name knows what it's all about. |
| 1:45.7 | Hi, I'm Daniel Pledka. I'm Mark Thiessen. |
| 1:47.0 | Welcome to our podcast. |
| 1:48.0 | What the hell is going on? |
| 1:50.0 | Mark, what the hell is going on? |
| 1:52.0 | What the hell is going on is the Chinese Communist Party has infiltrated America through the |
| 1:59.5 | internet and they are collecting data on a third of the population. |
| 2:05.2 | They are following not just what you're buying and what you're watching. |
| 2:10.0 | They're following your keystrokes on your phone. |
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