What, from your perspective, can you as an FCC commissioner do is it about
speaking out or out or what action can you take?
We have some expertise and experience in this area.
At the FCC, we've dealt with while ways ETP, China, Mobile, a lot of companies
with ties back to communist China that are involved with nefarious data flows.
That's why I'm speaking out in the main, though, the action here is going to come
from the Biden administration, the Treasury Department, CPS, the Committee
on Foreign Investment has been reviewing this for almost two years now.
I think the reality is, is the tide really has been moving out on tick tock.
I think it's had a very bad two months and I think it's shifted now from a
question of whether there's going to be some sort of ban or decoupling of
ticktock from Beijing to a question of when that takes place.
Now, Tick Tock is still spending a lot of money, millions of dollars to avoid
that by definitely think things are moving in the wrong direction for
ticktock. What about the direction from the
administration? Do you think it will ultimately be then?
And SIFI is the focus that was actually could be Congress.
Could we actually see across the aisle some agreement here?
Clearly both. As you mentioned, there is bipartisan
legislation now in Congress by cameras actually in the House.
Last Congress, Republican Gallagher, a Democrat, Chris Murphy, representatives
have a bill that would ban ticktock nationwide.
Obviously, the bipartisan agreement to ban ticktock nationwide on federal
devices. We have almost 30 states now that have
done it. It could be the Biden administration
ultimately that takes the final action. And I think it should be.
There's precedent for this. We've used CPS before to unwind the
purchase of Grinder based on having connections back to a Beijing based
entity. India has been ticked off across their
entire countries. I think that's the right direction to go
here. Commissioner Karl, good evening to you.
With massive respect to your office, the FCC does not have a power or a remit to
take action on this. So who are you backing to take action?
Who do you think? At a federal or state level, actually
see some material change when it comes to regulating ticktock.
Getting FCC officials, we do have some expertise here again, when it deals with
companies that have ties to the CCP and the various data flows.
But right in the main, I believe this is an issue that the Treasury Department
should take a look at. Really?
I think the biggest leader on this has been Democrat chairman of Senate Intel
Committee, Mark Warner. He has said that, quote, tick tock
scares the dickens out of him. And he's been working with Senator Rubio
and others on this. It could be Treasury, it could be a
better trade commission. Or as we talked about earlier, there's a
lot of interest in the House, bipartisan interest in taking action there.
So I think it's going to come from action on several fronts.
States included. I don't anticipate this will be a for
FCC issue itself, though. Yes, Commissioner, you mentioned India.
We went to our audience and asked them if they felt that what they saw, the
action taken in India could be replicated here in the United States.
Seventy seven percent of respondents said, yes, it sets an important
precedent. Does the action taken in India set an
important precedent? I think so.
It's a really strong precedent. India is obviously the world's largest
democracy. So I think taking action in that context
is very instructive. Again, there's two main issues here.
Is national security, but also mental health.
You know, on the national security side, ticktock came clean just last month and
said, yes, in fact, they had been surveilling the locations of specific
U.S. reporters who were writing negative
stories about ticktock. That's sort of a nightmare scenario.
Remember, we're at a point time where Tick Tock has been engaged in
negotiations with CPS, where they have every reason to be on their best
behavior. And yet they were engaged in that type,
in that various kind of trust is the most important thing right now when
you're trying to negotiate with the government.
Now, if I was in the buy administration at CPS, I'd be really disappointed if I
had had this draft agreement with Tick Tock that was in place over the over the
summer and you see the subsequent conduct.
I think it just shows that I just don't see a path forward.
We could cut a deal that will put airtight protections in place.
So ultimately, you feel a ban is the only way.
It's interesting. The EU before was sort of not talking is
tough. And now in their lexicon, the word ban
has become on the tip of their tongue. We've also been here seeing it from
India, as we mentioned. Is there no way that a deal could be
done with Oracle? No way that tick tock could convince.
There is a safe way of still continuing to operate in the US.
Yeah, I just don't see it. As you mentioned, Europe is starting to
sort of ramp up their activity just this week.
I think government officials in the Netherlands banned ticktock from federal
devices there. Again, it fundamentally comes down to
trust and there was leaked internal communications that Forbes got over the
summer. And they show that a tick tock official
said that even if all these protections are put in place, this project, Texas,
that they talk about a lot that involves Oracle appointed them.
It remains to be seen whether product and engineering, meaning Beijing, could
still get access to this data. So if officials inside ticktock aren't
certain that these protections can be airtight.
I don't think that we should think that they would be either.
And again, you look at analyst, one analyst in particular had a odds of a
tick tock bang at around 10 percent this summer.
And towards the end of last fall, they'd up to 40 percent.
That's before the bipartisan bill was introduced as before.
You saw some of these recent revelations.
I think things are moving in the wrong way.
But again, we'll see. They're getting an awful lot of money to
try to stop and or a decoupling commission.
That is one part of this equation we've not discussed, which is the tick tock
user here in the United States. Lots of people love using that app.
Many have told us they don't understand the risks.
They're not well explained. Why should ticktock be banned?
How would you justify it to them? Those million plus uses that are saying,
we want this. Yeah, it's too.
It's national security and mental health on an ask security side again.
It's pulling all sorts of sensitive data, everything from search and
browsing history, keystroke patterns, potentially according to terms of
service biometrics, which includes base prints and voice prints.
And for years, they misrepresented where this was going.
Internal mutations, again, show that everything is viewed inside China.
That's why FBI director Chris Wray and others are raising the alarm for the
mental health side is interesting as well.
There was a recent report cited by New York Times that had account set up for a
13 year old girls that within a matter of 30 minutes were showing eating
disorder, self-harm, content. And flash forward to the version of Tick
Tock. It's available in China, doyenne.
And it's not showing that. It's showing education, materials,
museum exhibits, science experiments. So it's very troubling both from a
national purity data security side, but also the mental health side.
OK. But the mental health issues have been
leveled, not just a tick tock, but at home grown social media platforms.
Instagram is often having to respond to such concerns.
How if we ban tick tock and users move perhaps to.
Shorts and Instagram. How do we prevent that sort of element
happening here? Yeah, there is a baseline level of
privacy protection, so we need to put in place.
I'm actually open to taking a look at increased age restrictions for social
media generally. A lot of this, to your point, goes to
social media apps beyond tech. That I think is something very unique
about tech that's exposed by the fact that you can compare what it shows to
kids in the US versus kids in China. But I do think it's a broader issue we
have to deal with here. It's sort of like, how do you eat an
elephant, though? It's one bite at a time.
I think just broader data flow concerns to go back to China with all sorts of
applications and data brokers. But we've been looking at ticktock for
two years with a big case developed on that.
We should take that action. And then I think it makes it easier to
then deal with knock on case and say, well, this is like tick tock.
We've dealt with it. That's what we've done in other contacts
again. We want while way first at the FCC, then
Zee TV, then China Mobile. I think that's how we sort of approach
this broader issue. Commissioner, I think what we keep
hearing is we've been looking at this for two years.
These things do not work well. I don't think Caroline and I hearing
from people in your position from the companies is an actual solution.
Are you going to suggest that Apple or Alphabet through Google just don't make
the app available through their stores? How are you going to actually make this
happen? It's one to one appetite that I've
thrown out. There is this idea that you look at
Apple and Google, have them remove it from the app store.
RTS India is an example grinder as a precedent here in the US where we banned
an app through the serious review or at least in that case required the sale.
I think all of those are potential actions that can be taken here, and I
think Tic TAC actually is uniquely replaceable.
Again, a lot of parents will get ticked off and I think it's like Facebook or
Instagram or another social media where you're following a network of people,
you know. But in the main with ticked off, you go
on there immediately, you're being fed content from Beijing.
So I do think it could be replace in with either another owner or another
short form video application relatively quickly.