Money Talks: Last dance for TikTok?
Money Talks from The Economist
The Economist
4.4 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2023
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Time may be running short for TikTok. In the US, both Democrats and Republicans view the Chinese-owned app as a national security threat and would like to ban it. It’s practically the only policy issue that the two parties agree on. And yet the politicians in Washington DC have left it very late to act. TikTok has already reached 150 million users in the US, half the country’s population, and every day it adds more.
On this week’s podcast, hosts Alice Fulwood, Tom Lee-Devlin and Mike Bird look at whether the fears about TikTok are well grounded, and what the options are for addressing them. The Economist’s Alexandra Suich Bass explains why alternatives short of an outright ban have gone nowhere. China security analyst Matthew Johnson says his biggest concern is that Beijing could use the app to spread pro-Chinese propaganda. Meanwhile, Nazak Nikakhtar, a former secretary of the US Commerce Department, suggests a way of neutralising the app without upsetting users.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If you're a TikTok user in the US, you may be understandably confused about the fate |
| 0:07.8 | of your app. |
| 0:08.8 | The video sharing app has 150 million users in the US. |
| 0:21.1 | That is almost half of the entire American population. |
| 0:24.7 | Donald Trump first tried to ban it in 2020. |
| 0:28.3 | That attempt failed. |
| 0:30.0 | But TikTok has since been prohibited from all federal government devices. |
| 0:34.8 | And now, lawmakers are pursuing a nationwide ban with new vigor. |
| 0:38.8 | That's what this bill does that we have before us today. |
| 0:41.9 | It goes right at the problem. |
| 0:43.9 | If the hands TikTok in this country. |
| 0:47.3 | Both Democrats and Republicans are united in the belief that TikTok poses a real security |
| 0:51.5 | threat. |
| 0:52.5 | I can certainly app is controlled by the Chinese government who can use it to spy on users |
| 0:57.2 | or manipulate them. |
| 0:58.8 | But TikTokers have their own theories. |
| 1:01.1 | TikTok is the most powerful tool to ever be put in the hands of the people. |
| 1:05.4 | And that's why the government wants to ban it. |
| 1:07.3 | A lot of us are banning together, talking to each other, sharing information that they |
| 1:12.6 | don't want to be shared. |
| 1:13.8 | The only reason why this is happening is because TikTok is destroying Facebook and Google. |
| 1:18.0 | Right now, every new situation is spreading this blatant lie. |
... |
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