President Biden just signed into law a bill forcing the sale of TikTok by its Chinese parent ByteDance—or else face an outright ban. The measure was included in a bill providing a $95.3 billion foreign aid package for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. Proponents of the bill cite privacy and national security concerns. TikTok, like all social media giants, collects piles of user data—and if requested by the Chinese Communist Party, ByteDance is obligated by law to share that user information. Critics also worry about political influence operations on the platform—a dictatorial foreign adversary turning our kids into little Manchurian candidates.
I’m just apalled by Walter Kirn’s refusal to acknowledge how important it is to have reciprocity with China. I’m actually surprised that the word was not once uttered. RECIPROCITY. If Facebook and twitter are banned in China, as was said on the debate, then it’s a no brainer and no amount of “everybody does it” and “TikTok does exactly what the US government does” will do.
Also how about patriotism ? How can you refuse to uphold your country’s interests over another (highly unfriendly, powerful, authoritarian) country? How can that be anything but wrong? I’m not even American and I was so upset.
Kirn’s faux-naïveté about what the potential risks could be was particularly unnerving. How about in the event of a conflict with China ? TikTok could spread dangerous misinformation that could hurt the US. It’s so bloody obvious.
And finally the argument that if the US allows China to buy land next to military sites then what’s the point is wrong on so many levels. I would say ban TikTok and don’t stop there and deal with the buying of land. If you have a heart attack and cancer, would the doctor not try and resuscitate you because anyway you have cancer so it would be pointlesss?
Kudos to Geoffrey Cain for keeping his head cool and not loosing track of what matters.
This is genuinely the worst guest in the history of the podcast. Walter did not bring up a relevant argument until 30 minutes in and compared the US to actual North Korea. Just absolute horseshit whataboutism. I am genuinely shocked that Geoffery agreed that the CCP does not create content. This is blatantly untrue. There are great reporters like the youtuber laowhy86 who also lived in China and have been saying since 2020 that the CCP has been paying Americans, Chinese citizens and all kinds of influencers to create Chinese propaganda and post it on the app. The most appalling example being Uyghur tiktoks where they show these "peaceful happy communities" where all the Uyghur people are just fine and love life in China. You cannot find a more obvious modern equivalent to Nazi propaganda other than the Winter Olympics. And to try and pretend like we will not go to war with China or like these atrocities are even comparable to anything the US has done is embarrassing. I love the way Walter later asserts that he is pro American and yet cannot seem to fathom a single American interest in geopolitics or give a shred of care for our people's safety. Never thought I'd hear a boomer bend over for Tiktok but, good lord, this is desperate. The US absolutely should stop with selling land to the CCP, using Chinese money to help with our debt, and investing so much into the US economy. How dense do you have to be to not realize this could be the first step?
Thank you for briefly mentioning the major Congressional hearings that actually hold weight in an argument against this bill. In that case let's look at ways to revise the language and protect ourselves from tiktok and avoid overreach rather than continuing to allow an authoritarian dictatorship control over a news media- which let's not pretend, tiktok most certainly is. Also amounting the amount of harm the app has done to a few "kerfuffles" is just an outright lie. We've learned already that the algorithm pushes kids to corners of the content web that promote suicide, self-harm, depression and eating disorders. The algorithm is like Instagram on steroids and it doesn't have the same level of moderation.
Maybe this is not the person to have in a debate about a very serious and complex issue or I have a bad faith interpretation of his ideas given that his character was already soured for me by his characterization of China and the US, but this conversation was infuriating.
I was so severely disappointed by this debate I had to login to leave a comment. The fundamental lack of understanding of both technology and media from both of these guests. The issue at play is part of a larger market evolution of media becoming technology, as exemplified by this comment being on substack (arguably a tech company) not the NYT. While one can watch RT and easily see a statement of bias and absurdity, and even if they don't, there is the ability in a one to many broadcast to address the statements made. These blackbox algorithms are the product, not the dissemination of decentralized content. This makes it nearly impossible to audit or verify the information contrary to the provided example of RT and these algorithms can be manipulated and swayed in a virtually undetectable manner while stripping individual autonomy and individual judgement. While there is totally a valid argument to be made that this is a concern for all tech companies, the difference comes down to judicial authority and accountability. None of this was discussed or addressed, nor was the topic of generative content actively being prototyped by TikTok which begins to enable them to create bespoke content for each user. In the west manipulative or destructive overreach has historically leaked out and allowed regulatory or legal action. Also unaddressed are the national security concerns of essentially a foreign adversary being in possession of a psych profile of millions of Americans, this isn't the same of knowing what cat videos you watch. Even if an individual say a military official isn't using the application that doesn't mean they are immune for the manipulative behavior that could be used against their family. Say a military leader taking leave during a time of unrest as their child was continuously bombarded with body shaming, drugs, and destructive content ...
It seemed to me they were both dancing around a different debate: China is a bad guy vs. Our Gummint is a bad guy. Identifying a "bad guy" misses the point. Is our gummint also hungry for power? Yes, of course it is. Has our gummint proven TikTok to be a threat? No. But again, I think that misses the point. This isn't about punishing TikTok for doing wrong.The TikTok Ban debate should instead hinge on how and when to allow a non-US entity, benevolent or otherwise, to own/control something with far reaching influence. Isn't this debate really about the incredible reach of TikTok? If TikTok has access to 170 million eyeballs, this is clearly a much wider audience than just 13 & 14 year olds. (The question of whether TikTok is a "publisher" is also a sideshow.) I would not want to rely on any foreign gov for our rail system or our food supply (as some smaller countries do.) Certain aspects of how the US functions should be kept "in house" in my view. Mr. Kirn argues for the stalwart immunity of US audiences to influence campaigns of false ideas. There is probably no way to know this: But what role might TikTok have played in the Columbia Univ (et al) events unfolding right now? I am far from convinced that influence campaigns have no power over us. I wonder what Yuri Bezmenov would say? I could be wrong. But I don't see the US gov't in this case stifling free speech. I see this as trying to make sure free speech is not as widely available to non-US voices. My bigger concern is that our elected decision-makers don't seem able to clearly articulate what is at the heart of the matter they are making decisions about. Can we minimize fear-mongering and focus on logic-based arguments with clear reasoning?
The manifestation of my 14-year old daughter's mental illness is directly related to her use of TikTok. As parents we had no idea it could trigger such self-destructive behavior.
Walter, Great Job, bringing it back to reality and the law vs speculation of what might happen. And reminding people that the US government is already doing the spying on its own citizens, and that China can purchase the same data as the US government.
We had 3 years of spreading of misinformation by the government during health crisis where legitimate qualified scientists, health professionals, etc... were shut down - sadly we can't ban the government for that.
We have more to fear from own government after the passage of the FISA bill.
At a certain point Walter Kirn asked specifically what the concerns were with TikTok. Part of the issue with the technology is its opaqueness. We don't know what content is being promoted or hidden, by who, and for what reason.
I am so confused by this whole "debate" discussion. Are we talking about China being bad, Tiktok being bad, the ban being bad, who owns tiktok being bad, or just generally how everyone thinks all the things at once and the other news out there is too boring to bother with? Walter thinks bans are bad, Geoff thinks China is bad, and they both seem to state that this is all so obvious as to be self evident. I went on Tiktok for a few days some time ago and I think as a technology, as rudimentary as it is (maybe because of that) it's clearly filled with trash and gibberish, with good content mixed in to make it go down easier. Like the mind melting funhouse mirror that is / was twitter. But instead of deforming only the media and elites, this is a sickness tailored for the unwashed masses. That being said, there is nothing to be done. It is out there and people are into it. It's USERS are singing its praises, regardless of lobbyists and politics, and at the end of the day if people using something want it, it will be so. Even the administration wishing to ban it said they will remain active on it until after the election (unless that is fake news?), so clearly there is a utility here to all involved, good or bad, and that tells me it will continue. All the ban is going to do (imo) is just add yet another dumb precedent that can be expanded and be even further stupefied to some horror show in the future. I guess we should all go out and invest in VPN companies in the short term? I wonder how many of those have their servers housed in china? Idk, to me it all sounds like people trying to defuse a bomb with mittens and blindfolds on. I guess good luck with that. Tiktok, and most social media ain't for me, but I ain't in the demo moving the world at the end of the day so that is prolly as it should be.
Walter Kirn’s questions and statements comparing our government to the problem truly hit home. How can we think they can “fix” a possible problem when they have spent the past 4 years being the problem. In one sense, we can thank goodness for Covid; it shined a light on how the government spies, manipulates, lies, conspires and no telling what else to keep us in line. All with the help of social media platforms, banks, pharmaceuticals, and “institutions of higher learning.” Until our federal government addresses these issues and identifies the problems publicly and FIXES them, I can’t trust them to do anything in my interest.
Unfortunately, I don't think Geoffrey Cain had very strong arguments and may not have been the best person for this debate.
He didn't speak at all about what TikTok is doing to American kids right now: fostering internal division and mental health problems. As to why a hostile foreign power would seek to create internal division and damage young people - if you don't understand that then you truly have no common sense.
More could have been said about what type of content the algorithm has been proven to promote. The FP listed statistics around Israel/Gaza war, these would have shown and supported the point of TikTok and by extension China changing and influencing US policy. You can see this playing out on college campuses right now.
Another example is the role of TikTok in promoting and creating social contagion in the gender epidemic.
Finally, Walter Kirn kept equating the US to foreign autocracies! I'm not American, but even I was dismayed at his casual dismissal of the actions by China and North Korea, saying the US does bad things too. The key difference is the accountability in a democracy. Unbelievable.
We are having this discussion on whether to ban a social media platform that is owned and controlled by our major adversary. It’s an interesting discussion and I understand why it needs to be had.
what about our green energy direction, completely supported by the federal government. This is where our soul dependency on the movement to this is the exact same country And political party that controls almost 90% of the production of the technology needed for solar, batteries, overproduction of electric vehicles. This overproduction of EV’s beyond the current China marketplace will mostly be dumped in our market and hinder our existing manufacturers.
I am much more concerned about this. This is like giving our adversaries the bullets for which to shoot us.
I’m sorry but Walter Kirn is a fucking idiot. He went from we shouldn’t ban TikTok, to acknowledging the Chinese is up to all sorts of odd espionage activities in U.S., but that doesn’t apply to TikTok, well actually I’m just concerned about the bill itself and how broad it is, to talking about how TikTok is a force for good because in East Palestine, Ohio people saw videos about dead fish.
The power of TikTok is its ability to influence and mobilize large groups of people within our country. How do you think massive groups of people believe the Hamas propaganda and are violently protesting in support of it? Because the algorithm exposed them to specific narratives designed to get them to act.
Imagine China invaded Taiwan, conducted electronic attacks to shut down their internet connectivity, and during the invasion started algorithmically pumping up videos of Chinese propaganda showing Taiwanese separatists talking about how they love it, no war crimes were committed, this is amazing, we’ve always wanted this. Then that trickles into the American youth psyche and we see violent protests demanding no intervention in Taiwan because TikTok showed them a happy story.
I’m a relatively conservative libertarian. But I swear you guys want to libertarian yourselves to death because you lack common sense to know that your principles only make sense to a certain point. Principles are good but judgment is necessary. To just lazily stick to your principles no matter the cost and cover your eyes and ears and hope the bad things don’t happen “because free markets” or something is stupid.
I think we would make more impact if we stopped using the term "communist" and call it what it is: dictatorship. You also said Totalitarian which I like. Or when you say "communist", make it a joke and call it "so-called communist"?
I was without question on the ban side but have had my mind completely changed. The for guy had not a single argument that made sense. A total blow out.
I’m just apalled by Walter Kirn’s refusal to acknowledge how important it is to have reciprocity with China. I’m actually surprised that the word was not once uttered. RECIPROCITY. If Facebook and twitter are banned in China, as was said on the debate, then it’s a no brainer and no amount of “everybody does it” and “TikTok does exactly what the US government does” will do.
Also how about patriotism ? How can you refuse to uphold your country’s interests over another (highly unfriendly, powerful, authoritarian) country? How can that be anything but wrong? I’m not even American and I was so upset.
Kirn’s faux-naïveté about what the potential risks could be was particularly unnerving. How about in the event of a conflict with China ? TikTok could spread dangerous misinformation that could hurt the US. It’s so bloody obvious.
And finally the argument that if the US allows China to buy land next to military sites then what’s the point is wrong on so many levels. I would say ban TikTok and don’t stop there and deal with the buying of land. If you have a heart attack and cancer, would the doctor not try and resuscitate you because anyway you have cancer so it would be pointlesss?
Kudos to Geoffrey Cain for keeping his head cool and not loosing track of what matters.
This is genuinely the worst guest in the history of the podcast. Walter did not bring up a relevant argument until 30 minutes in and compared the US to actual North Korea. Just absolute horseshit whataboutism. I am genuinely shocked that Geoffery agreed that the CCP does not create content. This is blatantly untrue. There are great reporters like the youtuber laowhy86 who also lived in China and have been saying since 2020 that the CCP has been paying Americans, Chinese citizens and all kinds of influencers to create Chinese propaganda and post it on the app. The most appalling example being Uyghur tiktoks where they show these "peaceful happy communities" where all the Uyghur people are just fine and love life in China. You cannot find a more obvious modern equivalent to Nazi propaganda other than the Winter Olympics. And to try and pretend like we will not go to war with China or like these atrocities are even comparable to anything the US has done is embarrassing. I love the way Walter later asserts that he is pro American and yet cannot seem to fathom a single American interest in geopolitics or give a shred of care for our people's safety. Never thought I'd hear a boomer bend over for Tiktok but, good lord, this is desperate. The US absolutely should stop with selling land to the CCP, using Chinese money to help with our debt, and investing so much into the US economy. How dense do you have to be to not realize this could be the first step?
Thank you for briefly mentioning the major Congressional hearings that actually hold weight in an argument against this bill. In that case let's look at ways to revise the language and protect ourselves from tiktok and avoid overreach rather than continuing to allow an authoritarian dictatorship control over a news media- which let's not pretend, tiktok most certainly is. Also amounting the amount of harm the app has done to a few "kerfuffles" is just an outright lie. We've learned already that the algorithm pushes kids to corners of the content web that promote suicide, self-harm, depression and eating disorders. The algorithm is like Instagram on steroids and it doesn't have the same level of moderation.
Maybe this is not the person to have in a debate about a very serious and complex issue or I have a bad faith interpretation of his ideas given that his character was already soured for me by his characterization of China and the US, but this conversation was infuriating.
I was so severely disappointed by this debate I had to login to leave a comment. The fundamental lack of understanding of both technology and media from both of these guests. The issue at play is part of a larger market evolution of media becoming technology, as exemplified by this comment being on substack (arguably a tech company) not the NYT. While one can watch RT and easily see a statement of bias and absurdity, and even if they don't, there is the ability in a one to many broadcast to address the statements made. These blackbox algorithms are the product, not the dissemination of decentralized content. This makes it nearly impossible to audit or verify the information contrary to the provided example of RT and these algorithms can be manipulated and swayed in a virtually undetectable manner while stripping individual autonomy and individual judgement. While there is totally a valid argument to be made that this is a concern for all tech companies, the difference comes down to judicial authority and accountability. None of this was discussed or addressed, nor was the topic of generative content actively being prototyped by TikTok which begins to enable them to create bespoke content for each user. In the west manipulative or destructive overreach has historically leaked out and allowed regulatory or legal action. Also unaddressed are the national security concerns of essentially a foreign adversary being in possession of a psych profile of millions of Americans, this isn't the same of knowing what cat videos you watch. Even if an individual say a military official isn't using the application that doesn't mean they are immune for the manipulative behavior that could be used against their family. Say a military leader taking leave during a time of unrest as their child was continuously bombarded with body shaming, drugs, and destructive content ...
It seemed to me they were both dancing around a different debate: China is a bad guy vs. Our Gummint is a bad guy. Identifying a "bad guy" misses the point. Is our gummint also hungry for power? Yes, of course it is. Has our gummint proven TikTok to be a threat? No. But again, I think that misses the point. This isn't about punishing TikTok for doing wrong.The TikTok Ban debate should instead hinge on how and when to allow a non-US entity, benevolent or otherwise, to own/control something with far reaching influence. Isn't this debate really about the incredible reach of TikTok? If TikTok has access to 170 million eyeballs, this is clearly a much wider audience than just 13 & 14 year olds. (The question of whether TikTok is a "publisher" is also a sideshow.) I would not want to rely on any foreign gov for our rail system or our food supply (as some smaller countries do.) Certain aspects of how the US functions should be kept "in house" in my view. Mr. Kirn argues for the stalwart immunity of US audiences to influence campaigns of false ideas. There is probably no way to know this: But what role might TikTok have played in the Columbia Univ (et al) events unfolding right now? I am far from convinced that influence campaigns have no power over us. I wonder what Yuri Bezmenov would say? I could be wrong. But I don't see the US gov't in this case stifling free speech. I see this as trying to make sure free speech is not as widely available to non-US voices. My bigger concern is that our elected decision-makers don't seem able to clearly articulate what is at the heart of the matter they are making decisions about. Can we minimize fear-mongering and focus on logic-based arguments with clear reasoning?
The manifestation of my 14-year old daughter's mental illness is directly related to her use of TikTok. As parents we had no idea it could trigger such self-destructive behavior.
Walter, Great Job, bringing it back to reality and the law vs speculation of what might happen. And reminding people that the US government is already doing the spying on its own citizens, and that China can purchase the same data as the US government.
We had 3 years of spreading of misinformation by the government during health crisis where legitimate qualified scientists, health professionals, etc... were shut down - sadly we can't ban the government for that.
We have more to fear from own government after the passage of the FISA bill.
At a certain point Walter Kirn asked specifically what the concerns were with TikTok. Part of the issue with the technology is its opaqueness. We don't know what content is being promoted or hidden, by who, and for what reason.
I am so confused by this whole "debate" discussion. Are we talking about China being bad, Tiktok being bad, the ban being bad, who owns tiktok being bad, or just generally how everyone thinks all the things at once and the other news out there is too boring to bother with? Walter thinks bans are bad, Geoff thinks China is bad, and they both seem to state that this is all so obvious as to be self evident. I went on Tiktok for a few days some time ago and I think as a technology, as rudimentary as it is (maybe because of that) it's clearly filled with trash and gibberish, with good content mixed in to make it go down easier. Like the mind melting funhouse mirror that is / was twitter. But instead of deforming only the media and elites, this is a sickness tailored for the unwashed masses. That being said, there is nothing to be done. It is out there and people are into it. It's USERS are singing its praises, regardless of lobbyists and politics, and at the end of the day if people using something want it, it will be so. Even the administration wishing to ban it said they will remain active on it until after the election (unless that is fake news?), so clearly there is a utility here to all involved, good or bad, and that tells me it will continue. All the ban is going to do (imo) is just add yet another dumb precedent that can be expanded and be even further stupefied to some horror show in the future. I guess we should all go out and invest in VPN companies in the short term? I wonder how many of those have their servers housed in china? Idk, to me it all sounds like people trying to defuse a bomb with mittens and blindfolds on. I guess good luck with that. Tiktok, and most social media ain't for me, but I ain't in the demo moving the world at the end of the day so that is prolly as it should be.
Walter Kirn’s questions and statements comparing our government to the problem truly hit home. How can we think they can “fix” a possible problem when they have spent the past 4 years being the problem. In one sense, we can thank goodness for Covid; it shined a light on how the government spies, manipulates, lies, conspires and no telling what else to keep us in line. All with the help of social media platforms, banks, pharmaceuticals, and “institutions of higher learning.” Until our federal government addresses these issues and identifies the problems publicly and FIXES them, I can’t trust them to do anything in my interest.
Unfortunately, I don't think Geoffrey Cain had very strong arguments and may not have been the best person for this debate.
He didn't speak at all about what TikTok is doing to American kids right now: fostering internal division and mental health problems. As to why a hostile foreign power would seek to create internal division and damage young people - if you don't understand that then you truly have no common sense.
More could have been said about what type of content the algorithm has been proven to promote. The FP listed statistics around Israel/Gaza war, these would have shown and supported the point of TikTok and by extension China changing and influencing US policy. You can see this playing out on college campuses right now.
Another example is the role of TikTok in promoting and creating social contagion in the gender epidemic.
Finally, Walter Kirn kept equating the US to foreign autocracies! I'm not American, but even I was dismayed at his casual dismissal of the actions by China and North Korea, saying the US does bad things too. The key difference is the accountability in a democracy. Unbelievable.
We are having this discussion on whether to ban a social media platform that is owned and controlled by our major adversary. It’s an interesting discussion and I understand why it needs to be had.
what about our green energy direction, completely supported by the federal government. This is where our soul dependency on the movement to this is the exact same country And political party that controls almost 90% of the production of the technology needed for solar, batteries, overproduction of electric vehicles. This overproduction of EV’s beyond the current China marketplace will mostly be dumped in our market and hinder our existing manufacturers.
I am much more concerned about this. This is like giving our adversaries the bullets for which to shoot us.
I’m sorry but Walter Kirn is a fucking idiot. He went from we shouldn’t ban TikTok, to acknowledging the Chinese is up to all sorts of odd espionage activities in U.S., but that doesn’t apply to TikTok, well actually I’m just concerned about the bill itself and how broad it is, to talking about how TikTok is a force for good because in East Palestine, Ohio people saw videos about dead fish.
The power of TikTok is its ability to influence and mobilize large groups of people within our country. How do you think massive groups of people believe the Hamas propaganda and are violently protesting in support of it? Because the algorithm exposed them to specific narratives designed to get them to act.
Imagine China invaded Taiwan, conducted electronic attacks to shut down their internet connectivity, and during the invasion started algorithmically pumping up videos of Chinese propaganda showing Taiwanese separatists talking about how they love it, no war crimes were committed, this is amazing, we’ve always wanted this. Then that trickles into the American youth psyche and we see violent protests demanding no intervention in Taiwan because TikTok showed them a happy story.
I’m a relatively conservative libertarian. But I swear you guys want to libertarian yourselves to death because you lack common sense to know that your principles only make sense to a certain point. Principles are good but judgment is necessary. To just lazily stick to your principles no matter the cost and cover your eyes and ears and hope the bad things don’t happen “because free markets” or something is stupid.
'Authoritarian meddling' is basically the definition of the entire Biden presidency.
“Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.”
I think we would make more impact if we stopped using the term "communist" and call it what it is: dictatorship. You also said Totalitarian which I like. Or when you say "communist", make it a joke and call it "so-called communist"?
I was without question on the ban side but have had my mind completely changed. The for guy had not a single argument that made sense. A total blow out.