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0:39

I'm Taylor I'm Taylor Welcome

0:41

to User. Last

0:48

week, TikTok lost its challenge to stop

0:50

a ban of the app in the

0:52

United States. States. I've been in deep

0:54

denial about this, and a lot of

0:56

creators have been too, but the ban is

0:59

looking more and more likely. My guest My

1:01

guest today is honestly the best person

1:03

to talk about this. Louise Metzikas on on China

1:05

and tech for Wired. Hi Louise, Louise. Welcome to Power User.

1:07

Hey, it's so It's so great to be

1:09

here, Taylor. Taylor. Okay, so I I wanted to

1:11

talk to you because I feel like

1:13

you are the expert of all things

1:15

about sort of China and tech. tech. And

1:17

I think... You just got back from Taiwan,

1:20

learning Chinese. that correct? Yeah, that's that's very nice

1:22

of you to say. I was I was

1:24

just in Taiwan for... about 10 weeks doing

1:26

an intensive Chinese course. course. Well, I I feel

1:28

like we can't talk about China and

1:30

tech without talking about talking about TikTok. So what is is

1:32

going on with TikTok? catch Catch us up

1:34

to speed because obviously we see news see news

1:36

that the ban is back on. I What

1:38

is the latest? court I know they lost you

1:40

case. a Can you give us a kind

1:42

of 101 on where things stand right now?

1:44

now? Yeah, first First of all, I just want

1:46

to acknowledge that if you find this

1:48

difficult to follow to alone not

1:50

I think it's been about a and

1:52

a half years now we we first

1:55

started talking about TikTok being banned.

1:57

was about... about middle of 2020? Okay,

1:59

so maybe maybe. years. since we

2:01

started talking about this this. I kind

2:03

of feel like the like who cried

2:05

cried I've talked so many

2:07

times about about. Tik, maybe not being

2:09

know, not. available in the US or or the

2:12

app getting banned here, or what have you. but

2:14

maybe not all will all listeners

2:16

will but this time, but it's for real,

2:18

guys. Like, this is actually that that it's

2:20

like looking truly, truly bad. This This is

2:22

not just like that Trump is tweeting

2:24

or whatever. Like this is really this is

2:26

courts have made courts have made a really

2:28

specifics are that specifics

2:30

week. week. There

2:33

was a decision in this

2:35

case this case where the U .S. US

2:37

government for passing a law

2:39

that would basically force either

2:41

parent parent company Bite Dance

2:43

to sell its U .S. operations

2:45

to an American company by

2:47

January 19th, or the app would

2:49

be banned. So people the

2:51

law as like a ban

2:54

or sell law, basically. So Tiktok sued that

2:56

that the law was

2:58

unconstitutional because banning this platform

3:00

that 170 million Americans they

3:02

argued They argued a a

3:05

violation of the First Amendment,

3:07

a .k .a. it violated people's to

3:09

free speech. However, TikTok lost

3:11

that case, and the Court

3:13

of Appeals in Washington, with the US

3:15

government. U .S. the court said that the

3:17

court said that there national admit

3:19

national security issues here. So what

3:21

happens next is that case could go to

3:23

the Supreme Court. And how likely do likely do you

3:25

think that the Sufum Court would take this up? up?

3:27

I I think they are likely to take

3:30

this case, but it's hard to predict. which way

3:32

way they would rule. The seem

3:34

like they like they are interested free

3:36

protecting free speech, but have courts have

3:38

given a lot of leeway to

3:40

issues security issues and have given

3:42

a lot of sort of deference

3:44

to the executive branch and the

3:47

president to make judgments about now. security.

3:49

speaking of the national security security I

3:51

feel like one thing that's really concerning

3:53

to me is that there doesn't

3:55

seem to be any proof. We still

3:57

don't have this don't have gun smoking gun of

4:00

of the allegations, I guess, that

4:02

are made against made against and of

4:04

course, American companies also have been

4:06

involved like Facebook in foreign interference

4:08

and and elections and stuff. stuff. So has the US

4:10

the US government come with anything

4:12

new? new? Is there a smoking

4:14

gun at this point? point? No. And

4:17

and actually, if you read the

4:19

court's opinion, it's really interesting because

4:21

they they acknowledge a lot of the

4:23

concerns about TikTok being owned a Chinese

4:25

company were actually hypo... hypothetical,

4:27

but they said that those hypothetical

4:29

national security issues were enough

4:31

to determine that the law was

4:33

in fact. So yeah, we don't have a we

4:35

don't have a smoking have We don't have

4:37

a evidence that the Chinese government

4:39

is spying on Americans through Tik or

4:42

that that they're trying to to manipulate

4:44

people's for you page to certain

4:46

ideas. We really don't have that

4:48

that evidence, but that's not because

4:50

the Chinese government is benevolent. is What

4:52

we've seen time and time again

4:54

is that they're able to get

4:56

information that they want from Americans,

4:58

their personal data, their social security

5:01

numbers, their you know, where they

5:03

come and go through other means,

5:05

right? they come and go, vendors. right Yeah, exactly.

5:07

It's not that I'm trying to

5:09

say. Oh, the Chinese government

5:11

doesn't have an interest in of

5:14

espionage and hacking. It's that that I

5:16

don't think do to do it through No,

5:18

they can do it through they can do it

5:20

through any and all brokers data all of

5:22

the data that's being harvested on

5:24

every American social app. along with of law, then,

5:26

of does that take I mean. kind

5:28

that take intending account? there any sort of

5:30

comprehensive data privacy reform that's going to

5:32

be passed along with this ban to ensure

5:34

that Americans are kept safe from? safe from

5:37

China? That's a very a very

5:39

nice thought, the Taylor. is no.

5:41

reality is stopping is

5:43

nothing stopping along and from coming

5:45

along the same thing doing the

5:47

same thing and it being owned

5:50

potentially by another or an adversary

5:52

or a different country your

5:54

data and data it to the into

5:56

the Chinese government. through some some

5:58

complicated supply chain. is nothing

6:00

here that really applies in a broader

6:03

context that is designed to protect your

6:05

privacy in a general sense. This is

6:07

really a law that was specifically designed

6:10

in order to target TikTok and to

6:12

target its subsidiaries. And that was part

6:14

of what TikTok tried to argue to

6:17

the court, right? That this is not

6:19

actually about national security in China. It's

6:21

about cracking down on one platform, right?

6:24

I personally think so. Yeah, it's kind

6:26

of been really frustrating over the last

6:28

four years to watch as people in

6:31

DC in particular lawmakers on both sides

6:33

of the spectrum. We should say like

6:35

this was originally sort of something that

6:38

came from Republicans, but then really became

6:40

a bipartisan issue that all of the

6:42

focus was on this. single app and

6:45

what this app could and couldn't do,

6:47

what kind of data it was collecting.

6:49

And I think, honestly, a lot of

6:52

that has to do with the fact

6:54

that increasingly less so, but generally, TikTok

6:56

is known for having a pretty young

6:59

user base and a progressive user base.

7:01

Yeah, and a very progressive user base.

7:03

And I think it was really telling

7:06

that you saw time and time again

7:08

that politicians who are really worried about

7:10

this would readily admit in interviews that

7:13

they haven't actually used the app themselves.

7:15

And I think Tikjak is really the

7:17

type of thing where if you haven't

7:20

spent a good amount of time using

7:22

it yourself, you don't really know what

7:24

it's about and you can't really get

7:27

the vibe from like reading a think

7:29

tank report or something like that. Well,

7:31

it's also, I mean, I feel like

7:34

I've reported on this a bit too,

7:36

but meta and Google have aggressively campaigned

7:38

against TikTok and led smear campaigns that

7:41

I think the media has fed into.

7:43

I mean, there's been a lot of

7:45

reports of these fake TikTok challenges that

7:48

then end up in Senate hearings and

7:50

other things brought up. What role do

7:52

you think those sorts of campaigns, those

7:55

lobbying campaigns, those PR campaigns in the

7:57

media, played in this decision? I

8:00

think there's no doubt that if TikTok

8:02

went away, it would be incredibly beneficial

8:04

for Facebook and their Instagram reels product.

8:07

Certainly, a lot of people would try

8:09

and find the same content on YouTube,

8:11

which also now has a vertical short

8:14

form. video platform as well. But I

8:16

think that really TikTok became a symbol

8:18

of rising geopolitical tensions between the US

8:21

and China and that Google and Facebook

8:23

didn't really need to do anything. It

8:25

just became sort of a household name.

8:28

It became this incredible I don't know

8:30

how to put it, like almost, I

8:32

guess a symbol is sort of the

8:35

right word. It's a buggy man. It's

8:37

used to push a moral panic. And

8:39

it's like, I mean, so much of

8:42

the conversation around this is moral panic.

8:44

And sort of like you said, these

8:46

hypothetical fears, but of course, if those

8:49

hypothetical fears were actual legitimate concerns, we

8:51

would be doing things to address them.

8:53

And it seems like they're not interested

8:56

in that. The impetus for bringing back

8:58

this ban last year from Rep Gallagher,

9:00

who really spearheaded this effort, was around

9:03

speech on the app and young people,

9:05

especially espousing progressive values and pro-Palestinian sentiment.

9:07

And that was sort of what put

9:10

it back on his radar. And that

9:12

seems really concerning that so much of

9:14

the, even the hearings about TikTok, it

9:17

wasn't really about China. It was about

9:19

the speech happening on the app and

9:21

the desire to censor speech. I totally

9:24

agree. I think one of the really

9:26

interesting things about reporting on US-China relations

9:28

is that a lot of the time,

9:31

particularly with older conservative lawmakers, but across

9:33

the spectrum, this issue with China or

9:35

this thing we're afraid of, really has

9:38

very little basis in China or is

9:40

not really relevant to China, but it

9:42

becomes this bogeyman or this thing that

9:45

we can talk about. is actually a

9:47

vessel for our own anxiety. So I

9:49

think towards the end of the tick-talk

9:52

saga, you know, as the bill was

9:54

passing, I saw a lot of lawmakers,

9:56

and I think you probably saw this

9:59

too, Taylor, when the CEO of tick-talk

10:01

testified before Congress, a lot of those

10:03

questions weren't about China. They were about

10:06

kids and social media, right? They were

10:08

about, you know, like, fears about, like,

10:10

what kids are learning online. Yes, it

10:13

all feeds into, I mean, we've been

10:15

covering a lot on this show, this

10:17

broad moral panic about kids and technology

10:20

use. Yeah, it was like, kids are

10:22

boiling NyQuil chicken and other conspiracies. And

10:24

it's terrifying, I think, because of course,

10:27

this law has pretty significant ramifications, right?

10:29

I'm curious, will it only affect TikTok

10:31

or will it also affect other bite

10:34

dance apps like Lemonade and Capcut, Lemonade

10:36

being their sort of Pinterest competitor and

10:38

Capcut being. I think like the main

10:41

mobile video editor for the entire content

10:43

creator industry. So what is the fate

10:45

of some of those other bite dance

10:48

apps? Is this like a bite dance

10:50

ban or will it be more limited?

10:52

This is a by dance band. So

10:55

it will definitely apply to the other

10:57

by dance subsidiaries because they are, you

10:59

know, share the same parent company. No,

11:02

not Cap Cut. Don't make you learn

11:04

Premier again. I know, I know. Cap

11:06

Cut is so much better than Premier.

11:09

I really think it's understated the role

11:11

that it's played in allowing so many

11:13

more people to become creators because it

11:16

was so much easier to like edit

11:18

a video right on your phone and

11:20

then upload it right away and to

11:23

have it look at least like. somewhat

11:25

professional or like have some cuts or

11:27

some different views. There's nothing like it.

11:30

There is nothing like it. And it's

11:32

actually interesting, like, I'm curious to our

11:34

thoughts too, how quickly TikTok pushed these

11:37

other companies, like we basically have a

11:39

duopoly outside of TikTok between meta and

11:41

Google, and neither meta or Google has

11:44

ever invested in creator tools, never really

11:46

prioritized creator, well, you do of course,

11:48

prioritized creators, but not like, like, they

11:51

don't have a editing suite, like cap

11:53

cut that's available that's available to them

11:55

to them. And it's available to them.

11:58

And it. And it seems like, like,

12:00

able to really challenge them and force

12:02

them to innovate and force them to

12:05

actually better serve users. And now that

12:07

they're eliminating that competition, it seems like

12:09

users are the ones that are going

12:12

to lose out. I think

12:14

that's right. And I think the reason

12:16

that TikTok was able to do that

12:18

and Bightance was able to do that

12:21

is that they're really the only major

12:23

social media company, I would venture to

12:25

say in the last 10 years, that

12:28

has been able to take lessons it

12:30

learned in the biggest and most online

12:32

market in the world, which is China,

12:34

and then take those lessons and use

12:37

them to succeed and to compete in

12:39

the US market. And I think that's

12:41

part of what makes TikTok competitors afraid

12:44

because they've been shut out of the

12:46

Chinese market. Right? Like there is an

12:48

argument that I think you can make

12:50

that's, okay, why is bite dance able

12:53

to dominate both the US market and

12:55

the Chinese market when meta Google, a

12:57

ton of other American companies were shut

13:00

out of that market, right? That's what

13:02

makes bite dance so interesting. And I

13:04

think one of the things they learned

13:06

was, hey, if you want people to

13:09

upload good content, you have to give

13:11

them the tools in order to do

13:13

that. Well, of course, the irony is

13:16

that it was all built out of

13:18

Musically, which was right here and which

13:20

could have sold to Viacom or another

13:23

American company, and which it could, it

13:25

didn't, and it, I mean, Musically was

13:27

forced to sell in large part as

13:29

I reported in my book, because Meadow

13:32

was driving them out of business. And

13:34

it does seem sort of anti-competitive. to

13:36

hand this win to meta and Google

13:39

in a way. It's going to obviously

13:41

also have huge economic impacts. It seems

13:43

like it's, I mean, it's going to

13:45

devastate millions of Americans that rely on

13:48

the app for income, millions of small

13:50

businesses. Like, what is the fallout going

13:52

to be from this ban? I think

13:55

it's going to be catastrophic in a

13:57

lot of ways, and it's going to

13:59

be particularly loud because these are small

14:01

businesses, small creators. have built an audience

14:04

on this platform that they cannot build

14:06

elsewhere. I think in the environment of

14:08

like five to ten years ago, there

14:11

were a lot of small businesses were

14:13

like, you know, they were great, they

14:15

were beloved, and they sort of had

14:18

like a kind of popular Instagram page,

14:20

maybe like a few thousand likes on

14:22

their Facebook page. and that was it

14:24

right maybe a few hundred on their

14:27

YouTube if they were lucky and that

14:29

was like the extent of their digital

14:31

presence that is not how tic-toc works

14:34

if you do well as a small

14:36

business on tic-toc that can transform your

14:38

entire company overnight you know we're talking

14:40

like one really passionate baker who bakes

14:43

in her home kitchen and in a

14:45

few months she can like have two

14:47

store friends and a staff of a

14:50

dozen employees and like credit almost all

14:52

of that success to the audience that

14:54

she was able to find rapidly on

14:56

TikTok and That's not to say that

14:59

Tik Talk is some kind company that

15:01

wants to make these small businesses do

15:03

well. What it is is that their

15:06

strategy is always to diffuse, diffuse, diffuse.

15:08

They would rather have, you know, 10,000

15:10

stay-at-home moms who each sell like three

15:13

sweaters through the Tik Top shop. then

15:15

try and lure one big celebrity that

15:17

sells 30,000 in a night or whatever

15:19

it is. They think that the way

15:22

to build a sustainable platform is to

15:24

hedge your bets by turning as many

15:26

people as possible into sort of like

15:29

micro influencers or trying to lure these

15:31

small businesses. And I think that one

15:33

consequence of that strategy which has been

15:35

very successful is now you have really

15:38

a lot of people all over the

15:40

country who probably are not making a

15:42

million dollars a year although there are

15:45

some here in Los Angeles for sure

15:47

but they're making five ten thousand dollars

15:49

from the platform and that's really meaningful

15:52

for their life yeah i mean i

15:54

did a story months ago where i

15:56

was interviewing small business owners about this

15:58

and i mean these are like and

16:01

pop businesses across the country, these are

16:03

people where they, this is how they're

16:05

feeding their family, this is how they're

16:08

paying for health care. Like, it just

16:10

seems so wild that these lawmakers truly

16:12

don't give a shit about. any of

16:14

them. I mean, there is no alternative.

16:17

There simply is no US alternative. There's

16:19

no other platform that has that level

16:21

of e-commerce integration and discovery. Like, TikTok,

16:24

as you mentioned, there's something very democratic

16:26

about it because it is so built

16:28

around discovery that small creators can thrive

16:30

there in different ways and be discovered.

16:33

And YouTube and meta are just so

16:35

incredibly saturated. It makes me nervous. I

16:37

really do wonder sort of what that

16:40

follow is going to be and also

16:42

like who people are going to blame

16:44

for it. Totally I think one possible

16:47

scenario here and I don't know how

16:49

legally viable it is, is that actually

16:51

what happens is that Trump does make

16:53

good on his promise to quote unquote

16:56

save the platform and one way he

16:58

could do that is even if the

17:00

Supreme Court decides to let the law

17:03

stay to uphold the law. Trump could

17:05

basically just not really enforce it. It's

17:07

not clear how long he would necessarily

17:09

get away with that, but I feel

17:12

like the platforms are just gonna abide

17:14

by the law though, even if he's

17:16

like, I'm not gonna enforce it. No

17:19

one's gonna believe him. He changes his

17:21

mind all the time and that shifts

17:23

the burden, like the risk is then

17:25

solely on. Apple and Google. Do you

17:28

know what I mean? So I feel

17:30

like. Yeah, but we could end up

17:32

in sort of a weird liminal space.

17:35

I think again, like it's so hard

17:37

to know where like you can't download

17:39

it from the app store, but it

17:42

still works on your phone until it

17:44

doesn't. Yeah, until it doesn't for sure.

17:46

But I just maybe, maybe I'm just

17:48

in denial, but I can't believe just

17:51

that like on January 19th, you'll open

17:53

the app and it won't work anymore.

17:55

One of the reasons that I remain

17:58

somewhat optimistic that Trump will want to

18:00

intervene is that it was interesting to

18:02

see how as this law got closer

18:04

and closer to passing and as more

18:07

and more lawmakers became convinced that banning

18:09

TikTok was the right move, you saw

18:11

the public go in the complete opposite

18:14

direction. There was a really great poll

18:16

from the Pew Research Center, which showed

18:18

that. as the TikTok saga unfolded, a

18:20

lot more people became unsure about whether

18:23

they wanted to see Tiktak get banned.

18:25

And a number of people also said,

18:27

no, I actually don't think this is

18:30

a good idea. Now that I've watched

18:32

the news for the last 18 months

18:34

or whatever and seen how this is

18:37

gone, I don't actually think this is

18:39

a good idea. So I wonder if

18:41

the risk to... voters, the risk to

18:43

losing public sentiment, losing public trust, and

18:46

also, you know, the big elephant in

18:48

the room is that these politicians, particularly

18:50

Trump, rely on TikTok to reach voters,

18:53

right? Like this has become a really

18:55

important platform for politics. That was the

18:57

irony of Biden doing all of this,

18:59

which is like at the same time

19:02

that Biden is spewing misinformation about Tik

19:04

and... pushing this moral panic about the

19:06

app and his whole administration is pushing

19:09

really dangerous censorship. They're leveraging it. They're

19:11

like celebrating and then Kamala HQ account.

19:13

It's like they're using TikTok. So it

19:15

just, it seems like this mind fuck,

19:18

you know, or it's like, it seems

19:20

so incongruous. These politicians just seem willing

19:22

to talk out of both sides of

19:25

their mouth. Yeah, you know, I used

19:27

to think like, Hey, I'm going to

19:29

give the lawmakers, the suits in DC,

19:32

a little bit of the benefit of

19:34

the doubt, like I don't have a

19:36

security clearance, like maybe they've seen some

19:38

sort of classified information that's really, really

19:41

troubling, right? And I've seen plenty of

19:43

really wild sort of Chinese hacking incidents,

19:45

you know, in the news this week

19:48

is that China was able to get

19:50

a lot of information from U.S. telecoms,

19:52

right, phone numbers, all sorts of personal

19:54

information from people, and that they were

19:57

really sophisticated sort of espionage, sort of

19:59

espionage, operation and they're very interesting. getting

20:01

data from Americans, but if that was

20:04

surely the case, then why is the

20:06

Kamala Harris campaign posting on TikTok every

20:08

day and like why is she risking

20:10

her staffers, you know, logging in and

20:13

out of the app, right? Like it

20:15

doesn't actually make sense. We'll be back

20:17

after the break to talk more about

20:20

kids and technology and China's role in

20:22

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out of whatever you're into. So

21:10

regardless of whether it ends, and

21:12

it seems like it will be

21:15

banned, this threat of China doesn't

21:17

seem to be going away. And

21:19

it seems like China is playing

21:21

a bigger and bigger role in

21:24

the US tech ecosystem. Is that

21:26

accurate to say? And what do

21:28

you think is there sort of

21:30

long-term goal in Silicon Valley? So

21:33

I think there are two broad

21:35

things happening. One is that the

21:37

new Cold War geopolitical competition, the

21:39

threat of China getting to a

21:42

super intelligence first has become this

21:44

enormous sort of narrative that is

21:46

being used by Facebook, by open

21:48

AI, by a bunch of defense

21:51

companies in Silicon Valley that are

21:53

now trying to be the new

21:55

defense contractors. And I think that

21:57

that narrative is sort of like

22:00

everywhere in tech and is something that is

22:02

very is very popular is that is bipartisan

22:04

and I I don't think that that's going. going

22:07

anywhere that's going to continue to

22:09

be a huge of rhetoric of

22:11

rhetoric from these companies, I and I think

22:13

it's worth pushing back, back are you actually

22:15

afraid of? What is the real concern

22:17

here? Like, why this app? Why are we

22:19

worried about this specific thing? What is

22:21

the consequence of this? What are the trade

22:23

-offs of making everything about national security? The

22:26

second thing, which is really

22:28

the amazing irony, is that is that

22:30

while has been under all the

22:32

scrutiny over the last few

22:34

years, few two companies in particular

22:36

that are also Chinese also Chinese, have A

22:38

huge part of the everyday

22:40

lives of literally tens of of

22:42

millions of Americans. And those

22:45

are are Timu and which which are

22:47

both fast sort of Amazon

22:49

competitors. My mother-in-law the other -law the other day

22:51

texted me do you you shop on T And I

22:53

I think it just showed that that like these shopping

22:55

shopping platforms, which collect a a

22:58

lot of data about you you are also owned

23:00

by two really big Chinese companies were

23:02

allowed to thrive and grow all

23:04

of the all of the focus

23:06

was on Timu had a Super Bowl commercial last

23:09

year. Yeah, I Bowl commercial last year. I

23:11

checked, I think the last time I

23:13

checked, 100 has been downloaded in million

23:15

times in the U .S. that, And no

23:17

moral panic about that, of course. been

23:19

a little bit, but been a little bit,

23:21

but think literally I think that like, sort

23:23

of of interest because I think

23:25

that I think that there's also

23:27

this understanding that one thing that

23:29

keeps that keeps is their ability to

23:31

buy cheap stuff. to I think

23:34

that lawmakers are less interested in getting

23:36

in the way of that in they

23:38

are in, than they this dancing app

23:40

that's poisoning the youth and making them,

23:42

like, more making right? Like, that is

23:44

a more compelling narrative a more the

23:46

stuff is too cheap on this app,

23:48

right? on this app, right? Well, I guess guess

23:50

it back to, like, the data privacy

23:52

concerns. I concerns. I mean, if you were,

23:54

again, so concerned about China

23:56

getting access to our highly sensitive

23:58

data, we would. have more protections. And

24:01

I think, as you mentioned, companies like that,

24:03

also gaming companies, right? There's a ton of

24:05

Chinese investment in gaming companies. These are also,

24:07

I would argue, de facto social platforms that

24:10

are harvesting data and connecting people. And the

24:12

focus is obviously very singular, sort of on

24:14

TikTok in that way. I guess what do

24:17

you see in the future in the next

24:19

five years as you mentioned this sort of

24:21

cold war happening? How do you think that

24:23

will play out? I definitely think you're going

24:26

to see more of this and I think

24:28

what you are going to notice when maybe

24:30

you travel to other parts of the world

24:32

is that we're going to see this split

24:35

between Chinese platforms and products right like such

24:37

as electric cars and American ones and I

24:39

think that you're going to maybe have this

24:42

weird experience of like you go to Mexico

24:44

and you're like oh There's all the electric

24:46

cars here and like I've never seen any

24:48

of these in the US. Oh, that's because

24:51

they're all Chinese and maybe you go and

24:53

call an Uber and it's like, oh, actually

24:55

everyone uses DD here, which we can't use

24:57

in the US because we've cracked down on

25:00

Chinese apps and like maybe, like, there is

25:02

a crackdown on Timu and Shin. Well, then,

25:04

you know, when you're on vacation in Thailand

25:07

and you need something that's for sale on

25:09

Timu, that's what you'll use there. move to

25:11

other parts of the world. And I think

25:13

that Chinese companies have in a lot of

25:16

cases exhausted the domestic market. So if they

25:18

want to keep growing, they need to go

25:20

somewhere. And I think that they're going to

25:23

continue to try and compete in places where

25:25

maybe Facebook and Google's hold on the market

25:27

is not as tight as it is here,

25:29

right? We're not going to stop using these

25:32

American platforms that are headquartered here. I don't

25:34

necessarily think that Vietnam is going to want

25:36

to keep using Facebook over TikTok necessarily. I

25:38

feel like that's what the threat is and

25:41

also why they want to ban it so

25:43

bad or why Meadow is pushing it so

25:45

hard is this is their first real competitor

25:48

and it's a much better product and it's

25:50

appealing and it is just undeniably more engaging.

25:52

I think it's also kind of weird and

25:54

I'm curious your thoughts of this of like

25:57

you know we've always criticized China as a

25:59

country for being so closed off and like

26:01

you said like they don't allow our apps

26:03

so why should we allow their apps or

26:06

whatever but It does seem like this focus

26:08

on China is ironically making us more kind

26:10

of China-like, where it seems like we're cracking

26:13

down, we're developing our own tech ecosystem, where

26:15

we're further cut off from the world. I

26:17

mean, I think of just TikTok in terms

26:19

of how much we learn and engage with

26:22

the world and international discussions and knowledge sharing

26:24

that happens on there. And it seems very

26:26

bizarre that we're sort of receding back into

26:29

the boundaries of our own country and being

26:31

cut off from all of those. discussions and

26:33

connections and the global market. Totally, isn't it

26:35

really depressing? Like, I think that that's bad.

26:38

And I think one of the most frustrating

26:40

things about the China obsession, I think it's

26:42

fair to call it an obsession. Like, it

26:44

really is. The imaginary China that looms large

26:47

in the heads of some of these lawmakers

26:49

is really wild and has little basis in

26:51

reality a lot of the time. But what

26:54

really makes me sad about it is, yeah,

26:56

like, a more closed off world, a more

26:58

closed off country, but also, like, I want

27:00

us to do things. because we want to

27:03

do them and because we believe in America,

27:05

not out of fear or competition with this

27:07

other place, right? Often when I look at

27:09

like Chinese legislation, it's coming from like, oh,

27:12

we've identified this domestic issue, right? Or like,

27:14

we've identified this problem that people are concerned

27:16

about or that, you know, whatever the authoritarian

27:19

government is concerned about to be. completely honest,

27:21

but at least it's coming from a place

27:23

of like we're focused on us and like

27:25

doing our thing and trying to make it

27:28

better for what we want. I hate that

27:30

like so much of these policies come out

27:32

of this idea of oh no there's this

27:35

app from somewhere else like we could do

27:37

something about that app rather than like privacy

27:39

is a fundamental right that we believe is

27:41

part of our American values and something that

27:44

we want to protect for our own and

27:46

our own morals. And that's the worst part

27:48

about it. When you're so worried and anxious

27:50

about that guy over there, it's really hard

27:53

to just think about what you need and

27:55

what your country needs and like what is

27:57

best for your own people. Yeah, and I

28:00

feel like we're losing relevance, right? Like America

28:02

is already losing global relevance and this I

28:04

think will just escalate it in the sense

28:06

that we're not part of those international conversations

28:09

or that global ecosystem. What are some things

28:11

that you're seeing in terms of tech trends

28:13

and just interesting product developments when you say

28:15

that five years ago you were sort of

28:18

thinking, oh, there might be a lot of

28:20

this stuff in China coming to the US?

28:22

What are you seeing today that might sort

28:25

of give us a peek into the tech

28:27

landscape of the future in America and elsewhere?

28:29

That's a great question. I'm going to give

28:31

you just like one fun example and then

28:34

I could talk a little bit more broadly.

28:36

So it was in China recently and their

28:38

version of Uber which is called DD has

28:41

this amazing service where you literally can call

28:43

a DD like as in like a designated

28:45

driver and so a man or a woman

28:47

but it's usually a man will literally roll

28:50

up on a tiny electric scooter fold up

28:52

the electric scooter put it in your trunk

28:54

and then drive you home. Oh my gosh,

28:56

we need this in Los Angeles like immediately.

28:59

Truly, the amount of times I've seen like

29:01

obviously drunk drivers on the road in LA

29:03

is so concerning. So sometimes it's things like

29:06

that where I feel like it's such a

29:08

big market and there's so much competition that

29:10

that pressure creates a lot of innovation. And

29:12

I think that there's a lot of interest

29:15

in sort of like iteration. So like, I

29:17

think in the US, we say to ourselves,

29:19

oh, like, that genius male founder came up

29:21

with that idea and like, that thing already

29:24

exists. And so like, the myth of that

29:26

is already there and I can't do that.

29:28

I have to like, sit by myself in

29:31

my room and close my eyes and come

29:33

up with an original idea. Whereas in China,

29:35

it's like, oh, well, like, I can see

29:37

a tiny hole in that guy's app and

29:40

I'm just going to exploit it and, like,

29:42

basically, copy his app and make it slightly

29:44

better. And then the next guy's going to

29:46

do the same thing and the next guy's

29:49

going to do the same thing. And so

29:51

I think that that kind iterative environment creates

29:53

a lot of things like the DD driver

29:56

service or like these little conveniences that I

29:58

think yeah are just really indicative. Also like

30:00

it's just a place where people spend so

30:02

much of their time online even more than

30:05

in the US if you can believe it.

30:07

And what I think that results in is

30:09

a lot of like the sort of like

30:12

the Chinese app aesthetic where there's so many

30:14

things coming at you, there's all these discounts

30:16

that could be ever spent time. on Timu,

30:18

but if you look at it for a

30:21

little bit longer, you can like really see

30:23

the genius in a lot of it. Like

30:25

the other day, I was on trip.com, which

30:27

is like the Chinese Expedia, and I like

30:30

looked at a hotel that I was almost

30:32

sure I was gonna book, and then I,

30:34

whatever, when I did something else, and then

30:37

I went back to the hotel, and it

30:39

was like. $3 cheaper than the last time

30:41

you looked at it. And it's like, that

30:43

is so genius. And I like booked the

30:46

hotel right away. And that was enough to

30:48

like push me over the edge. And there's

30:50

a lot of things like that where I'm

30:52

like, this is kind of invasive and icky,

30:55

but also brilliant sort of. And you start

30:57

to see over time when you pay enough

30:59

attention those little tricks. make their way into

31:02

the U.S. market often, but they're never credited,

31:04

right? Like no one's ever like, oh, I

31:06

like took this from DD or I took

31:08

this from Doean, which is the Chinese version

31:11

of Tiktok or whatever it is. But why

31:13

don't we have that spirit of iteration? Is

31:15

it just that it's so tough to compete

31:18

with these duopoly, basically? I think it comes

31:20

back to like that founder mentality, right? Like

31:22

I need to have this original idea rather

31:24

than I'm just going to iterate on the

31:27

thing that somebody else is doing. I think

31:29

that's part of it. I think also there's

31:31

a lot of focus on being in an

31:33

environment where like this is the city literally

31:36

where we make this type of car part,

31:38

right? And if you live in that city,

31:40

it's like you need to figure out a

31:43

way to like have a job there. So

31:45

maybe it's that you make the car part

31:47

for slightly cheaper. Whereas I think in the

31:49

US, we have such a service economy where

31:52

it's more about being in a group of

31:54

founders, we're all going to talk about our

31:56

next idea rather than sort of like, I

31:58

think it's a cultural thing to some extent.

32:01

it's also like, I already feel like the

32:03

US is so cutthroat and competitive, it's like,

32:05

just add like four times the amount of

32:08

people, right? And like, imagine what would happen.

32:10

It's like, of course it would probably get

32:12

more competitive. Yeah, I think, but also with

32:14

four times as many people, you can support

32:17

small niches and things that you can't support

32:19

in a market that doesn't have that scale.

32:21

Yeah, I also think part of it too,

32:24

and like this is a big thing that

32:26

I think about a lot that scares me,

32:28

is no one is going to China anymore.

32:30

And so what I worry about, like, these

32:33

sorts of pretty basic observations that I'm sharing

32:35

with you now, sound more insightful than they

32:37

should, I think, because it's so hard to

32:39

go there. Like there are so few students

32:42

now who are studying there, like, you know,

32:44

the Peace Corps program, the Fulbright scholarship, both

32:46

of those were ended during the Trump administration.

32:49

And so it's a lot easier to be

32:51

afraid of this place if you've never been

32:53

or you don't know anyone who lives there.

32:55

And I think that that makes. all

32:58

of the things we've been discussing a

33:00

lot worse and harder to combat because

33:02

it used to be like I don't

33:05

know if you've had this experience but

33:07

I feel like in the last five

33:09

years like when I first started reporting

33:11

in China people would be like oh

33:14

yeah I went on like a great

33:16

wall tourist trip or whatever with my

33:18

family or something or like oh yeah

33:20

I went on like a great wall

33:22

tourist trip or whatever with my family

33:25

or something like And so that's what

33:27

I worry about is that it's not

33:29

happening in the reverse. Well, I don't

33:31

think Americans are also that fundamentally curious

33:34

about other countries generally compared to other

33:36

nations. It's true. One thing that you

33:38

wrote about a while ago too that

33:40

I wanted to touch back on is

33:42

just because we were talking about sort

33:45

of like the moral panic around kids

33:47

in tech and how so many fears

33:49

about China end up just basically like

33:51

sort of it's really just like sort

33:54

of domestic fears of like our children.

33:56

And I think you wrote this piece

33:58

for the Atlantic last year, Act, this

34:00

horrible, horrible, horrible, dangerous piece of censorship

34:02

legislation, and so much of the conversation

34:05

is, you know, while China protects their

34:07

children, how true is that? So that

34:09

is and isn't true, which is sort

34:11

of what I went to in the

34:13

piece. So I think that the first

34:16

thing that was interesting and why I

34:18

wanted to pursue that story is that

34:20

it was fascinating to me that these

34:22

two countries that claimed to be so

34:25

different different political systems were

34:27

home to parents who had the same

34:29

concerns, right, about like, you know, rising

34:32

social media use, about bullying, about their

34:34

kids talking to people who were predators

34:36

online, seeing inappropriate content online, or too

34:39

much screen time for like really little

34:41

kids. But the difference between these two

34:43

places is that. China already has the

34:46

most sophisticated surveillance regime in the world

34:48

and they track the activity of everyone

34:50

on the internet. And so they were

34:53

able to sort of wield that system

34:55

in order to try and crack down

34:57

specifically on minors. And so there are

35:00

these rules now that I think it's

35:02

about an hour a week now

35:04

during the school week that kids are

35:06

allowed, quote unquote, to play video games,

35:09

right? But the reality, and this is

35:11

exactly what would happen here if we

35:13

pass the same kind of laws, is

35:16

that when the toddler is crying, like,

35:18

their mom just hands them their phone,

35:20

that they're using their national ID to

35:23

log into, right? Or like, if your

35:25

kid is begging you to play video

35:27

games and you wanna play video games

35:30

with your kid, right? Like, you're just

35:32

gonna log in under your name.

35:34

It always ends up being. a parental

35:36

issue and it is about the decisions

35:39

that parents make privately within their own

35:41

families. And that's still the case, even

35:43

in this elaborate surveillance regime, that we

35:46

don't have here. We don't have the

35:48

ability to. We don't have it yet,

35:50

but I think that's the whole issue,

35:53

right, is that there is this desire

35:55

to create and replicate that surveillance machine

35:57

through bills like Cosa that require age.

36:00

right, or like facial scans or just

36:03

all of these efforts to tie your

36:05

offline identity to your online. I actually

36:07

think this was like one of the

36:09

most terrifying moments of my career was

36:11

at the White House Content Creators Day

36:14

or whatever back in August that they

36:16

had with Biden. Yeah, I remember this.

36:18

Nira Tandens, a Biden admin official, and

36:20

she was asking this crowd of hundreds

36:22

of content creators, who wants to remove

36:24

anonymity from the internet? Raise your hand

36:27

if you wish that basically all your

36:29

trolls could be unmasked and we could

36:31

eliminate anonymity from the internet. And everyone

36:33

pretty much raised their hand and cheered

36:35

and was rooting for this. And then

36:38

she proceeded to give this whole Q&A.

36:40

Basically, the entire day was about removing

36:42

anonymity from the internet and tying your

36:44

offline. identity to your online behavior. And

36:46

I think the fact that they're trying

36:49

to get these content creators on board

36:51

with it who don't know any better

36:53

is really terrifying. Removing anonymity from the

36:55

internet is very bad. Like we know

36:57

that it doesn't actually lead to less

37:00

harassment. We know that. We've seen studies

37:02

on that. But also it is exactly

37:04

what we criticize China for is this

37:06

deep surveillance state. So it seems kind

37:08

of disingenuous. I completely agree. And it's

37:10

troubling to think that US lawmakers want

37:13

to build a system or I think

37:15

that there's a need for a system

37:17

that is similar to China. Like one

37:19

of the most heartbreaking repeated things that

37:21

I go through in my reporting is

37:24

seeing people trying to express themselves whether

37:26

online or offline in China and seeing

37:28

that brutally crushed and seeing their families

37:30

get harassed. And often the reason that

37:32

they're able to find them is because

37:35

now in China you have to basically

37:37

tie your national ID to everything you

37:39

do, every app you log into everywhere

37:41

you log into, everywhere you go. And

37:43

that's very similar like you said to

37:46

like these types of laws were like

37:48

in order to like get on Facebook

37:50

after 10 p.m. or whatever you would

37:52

need to like scan your driver's license

37:54

right like that's a very frightening and

37:56

I think what's been sort of I

37:59

guess clarifying for me is I'm reading

38:01

about the USSR right now. I'm reading

38:03

Moshegesen's book, which is called The Future's

38:05

History. It's so good. And it was

38:07

really striking to me how as Russia

38:10

became more authoritarian, there was this enormous

38:12

focus on we have to protect the

38:14

children. We have to protect the children

38:16

from like this type of content and

38:18

like how that snowballs into like these

38:21

more authoritarian concerns. Like while I do

38:23

sympathize with parents who are trying to

38:25

navigate a really different world than like

38:27

the one that they probably grew up

38:29

in right like it's just for all

38:32

generations by the way every yeah this

38:34

is always the case a different generation

38:36

than they're totally I totally get it

38:38

like I understand that maybe that is

38:40

bewildering and since maybe the industrial evolution

38:42

is something that every parent has to

38:45

go through, and I have a lot

38:47

of sympathy for that, and I think

38:49

like there are like discussions to be

38:51

had that are reasonable, but I really

38:53

think it's worrisome when that then gets

38:56

weaponized by the government, right? It's so

38:58

anti-American, this idea of like begging the

39:00

government to restrict how you can interact

39:02

with your own children and what you

39:04

should be allowed to show them and

39:07

when and how much time they should

39:09

spend using different types of media. I

39:11

think if we just look at this

39:13

for what it is, it's a very

39:15

troubling idea and it's not good that

39:18

I'm like, oh, I'm reading this book

39:20

about the rise of Putin and I

39:22

see similarities and I see similarities. using

39:24

China or using some sort of like

39:26

scary other place that like you can't

39:28

really imagine and that you have to

39:31

listen to like our description of is

39:33

a really great way to sort of

39:35

mask what's going on here right which

39:37

is more government control of what kinds

39:39

of content, what kinds of apps are

39:42

available, and it's in this context of,

39:44

well, we have to protect you from

39:46

China, we have to protect the children,

39:48

just sort of like, you know, overall,

39:50

right? Like those are really nice justifications

39:53

for something that I think fundamentally is

39:55

really questionable. Yeah, and of course they

39:57

don't want to protect. vulnerable children who

39:59

would suffer under these types of laws,

40:01

the LGBTQ kids that rely on the

40:03

internet, you know, for community, and it's

40:06

just a lifeline. But I think it's,

40:08

as you mentioned, it's just really important

40:10

to point out the authoritarian kind of

40:12

tendencies beneath that. And I think Jonathan

40:14

Hyatt, all of these other kind of

40:17

like prominent media figures have really fomented

40:19

this moral panic, and they're pushing really

40:21

authoritarian things. I think it's important to

40:23

call that out. because I think they've

40:25

gotten a lot of liberals on board,

40:28

right? Like you mentioned, these parents that

40:30

care about these things are authoritarian or

40:32

necessarily want to feed authoritarianism, but they

40:34

end up doing it. And parents, like

40:36

you mentioned, so much of the like

40:39

moral panics of the past are all

40:41

about like. save the

40:43

children and even just like the comic

40:45

book band in the 1950s was very

40:47

much under the sort of premise of

40:50

the Cold War and a lot of

40:52

that sort of political climate so it

40:54

does seem like we're entering into kind

40:56

of scary times. Yeah I think it's

40:59

just like to step back and acknowledge

41:01

that all of this and like why

41:03

it's so interesting and why it's a

41:05

triggering for a lot of people is

41:07

that it's two really primal fears the

41:10

fear of protecting your children and like

41:12

the fear of a scary mysterious other

41:14

right which in like this case is

41:16

China and tic-toc sort of got caught

41:19

between those two forces and I think

41:21

that that's why the app has sort

41:23

of ended up in this really unfortunate

41:25

legal position that it has it's not

41:28

really anything having to do with the

41:30

app itself. It's the lawmakers, the politicians

41:32

capitalizing on two tried and true trusted

41:34

ways to pass legislation that is troubling

41:37

or to further a moral panic. Well,

41:39

Louise, thank you so much for chatting

41:41

with me today. Thanks for having me,

41:43

Taylor. That's

41:46

all for the show. You can watch full episodes of

41:48

Power User on my YouTube channel at Taylor Lorenz. Power

41:50

User is produced by Travis Larchik and Jalani Carter. Our

41:52

executive producer is Zach Mac. Our video editor is Sam

41:54

Essex. Power User is part of the Fox Media Podcast

41:56

Network. you like the show,

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