good morning everybody 8:30 here on the East Coast on this Friday this is morning rush I'm Rob Nels and I'm Alex Livingston the Senate Now set to take up a measure passed by the house that calls for the popular social media app Tik Tock to be sold by its Chinese owner bent yeah the measure passed overwhelmingly in a bipartisan vote and uh but faces an uncertain future in the Senate the concern by Tik Tock and its millions of users is how the measure could lead to a ban of the app here in the US
I don't support a ban on Tik Tok the legislation did not ban Tik Tok it's simply a devest of Tik Tok so that this social media platform can be owned by an American company yeah I've talked to a number of Senators uh they are look a lot of them are looking towards how strong this vote is so the fact that it's such an overwhelming vote for republicans and Democrats vot well joining us this morning for wide ranging discussion on Tik Tok and its use here in the US are three people who bring differen
t areas of expertise and viewpoints which of course we love right so Stuart Roy is the former director for the national Republican senatorial committee under Mitch McConnell Andy Kaiser is a cyber security expert and Senior fellow for the National Security Institute and Emily Swift is a content creator and on Tik Tok and owner of dark slide film lab so thank you all uh for being here we really appreciate it all right so Stuart let's start with you since this has become such a political issue um
the bill did have overwhelming bipartisan support but still needs to pass the Senate where that seems to be uh pretty uncertain there at that level so how much of this is about National Security how much about freedom of speech and how much is Just politics at this point yeah I mean there's so many elements to this bill and the underlying currents in it uh but uh there are certainly real privacy concerns uh are concerns about the relationship between the parent company bike dance and the Chinese
government all those are legitimate the question is does this bill really address that I think those are that's also something to look at um but the you were talking about the the overwhelming vote 50 to nothing in the in the committee and then overwhelming uh 360 something to uh anyway uh on the house floor but sometimes the the scarious words from DC are bipartisan consensus and so when something passes like that you really need to take a a close look at the bill and I think that's what's goi
ng to happen in the Senate there's you know as you know there's a competing measure in the Senate as well and so I think it's going to move a lot slower in the Senate and it'll be uh scrutinized but I think this is real and the threat to uh to bite dance or Tik Tock um is very real here and Andy you've written extensively about the uh shifting balance between the US in China One of the world's most complicated foreign relationships because we desperately need uh but also compete with each other
so that's always an interesting Dynamic uh but when it comes to cyber security and National Security you know lawmakers appointed to China basically saying you know this app helps China collect a lot of data I'm still trying to understand for the life of me what the connection is between bite dance knowing that Emily is doing her dance video at her garage in Detroit uh and what that has to do with putting American National Security at risk just I just want someone to connect those stops for me f
ully to to elaborate on this National Security risk when I can think of a whole lot of others right now that don't get attention and Dam sure don't get a a bill passed in eight days in the current US House well uh that's that's correct and it's actually not Tik Tock in and of itself that is problematic it's the uh ownership by the parent company in China so um and I'm actually not even as concerned as the the data that could be collected it's the fact that the Chinese government has access to a
platform with 170 million Americans uh uh phones so they could turn those phones um into collection devices they could disable them in event of a action say crossing the Taiwan straight so a very legitimate national security threat to have your the world's most preeminent adversary with control over 170 million Americans phones Tik Tock the platform less problematic and in fact I think this bill will lead to divesture which would just change ownership and Tik Tok would continue to function uh as
it does every day speaking of that do you are you do we think this effort announced yesterday by Steve minuchin former treasury secretary an interesting figure in the Trump cabinet do you think that's a real thing he actually is going to uh buy out by dance more or less he and his Partners I suspect someone will this is where it ends and and for me the fact that uh bite dance and Tik Tok have had such a visceral reaction to this development tells me that uh they indeed are controlled by their p
arent company and the Chinese Communist party don't want to let this go so whether it's uh Mr minuchin secretary minuchin's uh ownership group or someone else I think uh the United States National Security leaders and and our partners around the world are just interested in that moving control from from uh from China to literally almost anywhere else so Emily over to you now for the thousands of people like you who literally make their living creating content on Tik Tok and other social platform
s uh what do you need lawmakers and others to know and understand about all of this so having my audience on Tik Tok has truly allowed me to connect with the subculture that my business exists within film photography shooting film processing film this is a very Niche hobby to have and it's very hard to find people with that interest and mass so easily like it is on Tik Tok I just don't think that other social media platforms give us the opportunity to reach exactly who we're trying to reach in s
uch a large amount so easily and this platform and Tik Tok and the reach that my business has on this platform has kept my business open I mean we were on the fritz of almost failing when we had a video go on to reach over 4 million viewers and that changed everything for my small business today nearly 80% of our lead generation comes from Tik Tok and if we lose our platform I'm not sure that we'll be able to continue to have that many leads and that much business so are you concerned about the
cyber security aspects that we're talking about right now I think it's definitely a concern but I think that the conversation should be more centered around data protection and not Banning one specific app nobody seems to be talking about all of the other social media platforms that sell our data and who they're selling the data to so while I think that there should definitely it's it's definitely part of the conversation I don't think it should all be targeted just at Banning one platform and s
he she raises a good point there because listen all these platforms do collect data now they may not all have links to China which I think is what makes Tik Tok a special example but I'm I'm curious we live in this era now we're Facebook's collecting and Instagram's collect ing Apple knows where you are you Google something all a sudden it pops up on your Facebook feet it's it's a real big brothery kind of time in American society but address her point about uh why this Spotlight on Tik Tok and
not the others because we're all being surveilled digitally in one way or another yeah it's it's absolutely a great Point very legitimate uh because there are there are real privacy concerns about data collected across the board by uh technology companies and but this really oils down to uh the parent companies we were talking earlier uh and the laws in China which require uh companies to support assist and cooperate with State intelligence work uh that's very disturbing and in many ways this uh
vote in Congress and this Bill in Congress are really a proxy vote for the great distrust between uh the United States um and China you know Nixon went to China 50 plus years ago uh and while he's passed on this relationship is while not toes up is uh is certainly not in good shape right now Andy I want to ask you about something that Emily just said that the conversation should also focus on data protection um and not necessarily the reactive part of this and and banning one particular platfor
m what does that data protection look like when it comes to cyber security um when there are other countries like let's say Russia that has you know found ways to kind of meddle in our elections here in America through social media platforms not just Tik Tok yeah it's a good point and actually just uh earlier this week the Director of National Intelligence testified up on the hill that uh the Chinese government was using Tik Tock to uh spread misinformation and disinformation in this current ele
ction in 2024 uh so certainly certainly uh an issue there though again uh fa Facebook X Instagram the other social platforms though they certainly have their issues I have two young daughters for example um that that are you know concerning what they might find on there uh they are not beholden to the to the Chinese government they are not part of uh you know this regime that is our geopolitical primary adversary in the world so I think a huge difference there but again I'm not for I'm not for B
anning tiktock necessarily I'm just for changing that ownership and Emily to that point I mean let me let me you know uh let me be old grumpy guy uh for a second sh ipy if they really did come to you with evidence and says listen China is doing or has likely potential to do bad stuff with this data you would understand I hope that National Security as a whole is more important than your individual business and you would also understand that in the age we live in the next Tik Tock in some way or
another would come along another platform that would be popular and useful and and and what have you without these National Security conc concerns you would accept that life would go on if Tik Tok does not well I understand that I also think that it's important to note that over five million small businesses rely on Tik Tok to keep their doors open every month so it wouldn't just be my business that's affected there are millions of small businesses that would face the possibility of going under
due to this so are do you think that whoever buys it next um would I guess hinder your business make it better is there concerns with that because or or are you necessarily against a sale or just not Banning it really I would like to see it not banned and I think that part of what makes Tik Tok so magical is the fact that there's no bias with the current ownership as far as I'm concerned but I fear that if it gets into the hands of a us-based company there might be the introduction of more biase
s that work in favor of the government I mean we have the ability to spread news amongst one another right now with the platform as the way it is and I fear that creators would lose that opportunity to speak so candidly and so freely on the app you know that is something though that I have noticed um just on uh social media people that are worried about this whole thing is that this is what they say and believe is that this is what the government's way of censoring and putting it down Amper on f
ree speech and how they get their news which is where a lot of people do get their news nowadays you trust the owner in a communist country we wouldn't trust the owner of a democracy that's a whole another uh discussion uh we'll leave there though this was really helpful and insightful and again really interesting points of view on a complicated issue of course we'll see what uh what Congress does uh it won't be fast we can pretty much guarantee that but uh Stuart uh Roy and Kaiser Emily Swift t
hank you all very much have a lovely weekend you too outstanding thank you more news after this
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