The U.S. Takes On TikTok
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 3 August 2020
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The past couple of weeks have seen some alarming developments in the U.S.-China relationship. Among them is how the United States plans to deal with the wildly popular Chinese social media app TikTok. The debate over the social giant has reached the White House and discussions of what to do about it have ranged from an outright ban to Microsoft acquiring U.S. operations of the app.
What makes TikTok a threat to national security? And what does this whole episode say about where U.S.-China relations are heading?
Guest: Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, reporter for Axios and author of the Axios China newsletter.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Over the weekend, TikTok began filling up with these testimonials. |
| 0:08.0 | Some of them were emotional. A lot of them were just silly. |
| 0:11.0 | Hi! Grandma Sandy here! And I'm hanging out with one of my grandbabies, Jordan. |
| 0:17.0 | Hi, I'm Jordan. |
| 0:18.0 | This one is from a grandma, who is best known for putting some mentos in a soda bottle |
| 0:22.8 | and letting the concoction explode all over her face. |
| 0:27.3 | She was filming the whole time. |
| 0:28.8 | She's got 2.5 million followers. |
| 0:31.5 | Well, we all love TikTok, and of course we're all hoping TikTok stays with us for a very, very, very long time. |
| 0:38.8 | Very long time. |
| 0:39.7 | Because it brings us so much joy. |
| 0:42.2 | It's brought so much joy to all. |
| 0:43.4 | These videos, they were spurred on by the president's assertion on Friday, that he was going to ban TikTok. |
| 0:49.9 | He's alleged the Chinese-owned company is a security threat. |
| 0:53.6 | TikTok, we love you. We all want you to stay around for a security threat. TikTok, we love you. |
| 0:55.3 | We all want you to stay around for a long time. |
| 0:57.8 | Woo! |
| 0:58.0 | Go to TikTok! |
| 1:00.5 | I called up Bethany Allen Abrahamian because I wanted to know whether this ban idea made any sense. |
| 1:07.1 | So, Bethany, I have a question for you. |
| 1:09.7 | Do you have TikTok on your phone? |
| 1:12.7 | I do not have TikTok on my phone. |
... |
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