What Next TBD: The Case Against TikTok

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News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2023

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

To most of its 150 million American consumers, TikTok is a fun app. To some creators, TikTok is a job and their platform. But to members of the US government, TikTok is a national security risk. As the fight over TikTok’s future comes to Capitol Hill this week, what’s next for the embattled social media platform? Guest: Emily Baker-White, senior writer, tech reporter at Forbes Host: Lizzie O’Leary If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you are on Capitol Hill on Wednesday afternoon, you would have witnessed a slightly
0:23.7	weird press conference. A few congressmen, Jamal Bowman from New York, Mark
0:29.1	Pocan from Wisconsin, and Robert Garcia from California, and about 30 TikTok
0:35.3	creators. I am Grace Amaku. My TikTok handle is at Grace
0:41.0	underscore Africa and I'm 27 years old. Yeah, turn up.
0:46.0	They were trying to push back against the growing momentum in Congress and the
0:53.5	Biden administration for a TikTok ban. Grace uses TikTok to share her stand-up
0:58.9	comedy.
1:10.5	And a ban would blow it all up. I'd lose a lot of my followers and from there a lot
1:15.4	of my revenue. Because of TikTok, I have been able to move from Houston, Texas to
1:22.1	LA to further pursue my passion and entertainment. And therefore, would I be able to
1:30.9	pay the rent? But it doesn't look like the long-running drama of TikTok versus
1:38.5	the United States will get resolved amicably. The committee will come to order.
1:43.7	Show to the company CEO. Spent Thursday fielding angry questions from members of
1:49.4	Congress about whether TikTok is a national security risk. And whether the data of
1:54.6	its 150 million American users is safe from the Chinese government.
1:59.2	Mr. Chu, you are here because the American people need the truth about the threat
2:05.1	TikTok poses to our national and personal security. TikTok collects nearly every
2:11.6	data point imaginable from people's location to what they type and copy who they
2:17.3	talk to biometric data and more. He was in full contrition mode. Our approach has
2:25.2	never been to dismiss or trivialize any of these concerns. We have addressed them
2:29.6	with real action. Now that's what we've been doing for the last two years. Building
	...

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