From the part of the show HBO didn't upload: "Luckily all our environmental laws are older than 18 years, so Rep. Gaetz shouldn't have much interest in them."
@@raymondkassay3610 real question: when pill-mill Trump deports millions of americans who harvest our food and do service jobs, who is going to fill those positions? Americans dont want to work on dairies or farms, or do service jobs. unemployment is below 4% anyway. So, who is going to pick/grow our food?
Food for thought. Rather than just ban 1 app, why not just crack down on what kind of data companies can collect when people use their platform? Helps the American public and solves their concerns. But then again the people currently in office and those just recently elected will never do anything to actually help the American public, let alone take money away from big corporations.
Because regardless of privacy regulations, there is no amount of data we should feel comfortable handing directly over to the government, especially the the authoritarian one of a hostile nation.
For the Singaporean Citizen scene, all I can think of is King of the Hill "So, Mr. Kahn, are you Chinese or Japanese?" "I lived in California for the past 20 years. I'm originally from Laos." ".... huh?" "Laos. We are Laotian." "The ocean? What ocean?" "We are Laotian - from Laos, stupid! It's a land locked country in south east Asia. It's between Vietnam and Thailand, okay? Population 4.7 million" "... soooo, are you Chinese or Japanese?"
🤣🤣For real ! As if they are deaf and only want their intrusive questions on written record as if they are a terrier going after a rat down a tunnel. They don't solve anything. Don't prove anything other than they are total A$$ Hools with no purpose other than to spend taxpayers money investigating anything. I'm surprised they don't ask how money toilet paper each defendant uses per poo.
But we all know they wont. The guys who say "trust us, we are protecting your privacy" are the ones who passed a law allowing internet companies to SELL our personal data. Not without provisioning an exception for themselves, btw.
But this proves that many repubs and dems are being bribed/influenced by the rich, so they're willing to demonize TikTok so Zuckerberg and others can reclaim all that mineable data.
As a non-American I find it interesting, how personal data suddenly becomes an issue, once the new trending app is non-american. But what do I know... Hi Google! :)
Our government is so good at using the media to direct public conversation. We're all too distracted and uneducated, and politicians never actually say what they mean, and yet everyone thinks they do, while simultaneously claiming that all the politicians they don't like are lying about everything. It's baffling.
For a reason. I'm going to guess it's how they use the data. The data that they collect is literally everything, including keystrokes for everything on every app, including permission to allow those permissions to your devices linked to your profile. So any government employee has allowed them to access the computers and everything on them if they've ever used Tic-Tok on a government device or your government credentials on a private device with Tic-Tok.
The point is moreso that there's no good reason for banning the platform, since it doesn't stop China from buying your data from the other apps, and how this ban only exists to protect Silicon Valley; not the American people.
😂🤡 In the near future, supporters of Donald Trump will demonstrate a cheap trick related to saving the social network TikTok. As part of this stunt, Trump will be presented as the saviour of TikTok, which is likely to lead to a significant increase in his ratings among a certain short-sighted audience. It will be another cheap show." 🤡😂
We have publicly owned radio stations. We have publicly owned television broadcasting. Why do we not have publicly owned internet service providers and social media spaces?
I guess ...but you can sue/put in jail the owners of a US company for misuse (however actually real or unreal 🤷🏻💲💲💲) CIA doesn't have an office in the Google building...the Chinese intelligence services have a literal office at tiktok.i believe China sets rules on content/algorithms for media companies...I'm not even sure FB is allowed in China...gotta be easier to argue/fight a company like Google as a us citizen than the Chinese government as a Chinese citizen.
Would you say that the American companies have the same relationship with the American government as Chinese companies have with the Chinese government?
@ yes but after the tenth time someone says “I’m not Chinese I’m from Singapore” and he kept yelling about China I feel it’s just racism or ignorance at that point
It's not just about the short form content, it's the rate that it spreads misinformation and disinformation and it's Chinese owned and operated, creating even more of a national security risk. It puts most other apps to shame in that regard.
@@Sagesatlol no it doesn’t. Twitter is the king of misinformation and Facebook definitely takes second place. TikTok is more strict about everything across the board when it comes to social media companies. You can’t even say certain words like gun without being flagged
Short form video is absolute cancer. Its time waste and highly addicting. Most people can never stop doing it for a long time. And it completely fucks up children. Short form video infinity scroll should be banned or at least heavily regulated. It brain rots a BILLION people who could do something usefull otherwise like god damn learn something read or anything.
@@Sagesat Oh yes its a problem. Fluid intelligence in humanity is on a decline (most data shows towards social media/media usage) first time ever its observated and at the same time AI is on the rise. We are in for some awakening.
23:13 yeah I remember when the PATRIOT Act was just to “Keep Americans safe from terrorists” and then we ended up finding out it was just for the government to SPY on us without a warrant, and the backlash of that being public will always make me laugh. Congress members were screaming safety, safety, safety but most of America was having non of it
What do you mean most of America was having none of it? It's still, in practical terms, in effect. It lasted 19 years before not being renewed, but all the infrastructure is still there.
Yeah, I'm sick of this, "You kids don't know what's good for you. Let us make all the decisions for you." Like they're [Congress, i.e. bought officials by lobbyists] our fucking parents, and we're [millennials, gen z, and younger] fucking 3 years old. You [Congress] educated us, and now you're regretting *how much* you educated us.
"we ended up finding out" Some of us even read the bill before it was passed and tried to sound the alarm, but were ignored. And, continued to sound the alarm for years about several of that administrations problems, but were ignored. And, continued to sound the alarm when these sorts of activities continued under the Hope & Change guy from the opposite party, and weren't just ignored, but lambasted for going against team "Good Guy." Until one day, some of us realize that all of our youthful exuberance went to waste-on an electorate too ignorant to take political action in it's own interests-and just shout bitter retrospective posts into the void of Internet comments.
I feel not enough people talk about this new wave of TikTok like formats on all platforms actually being incredibly bad for creators as much as its users. As easy as this new format is to artificially grow user traffic to trick investors into believing a platform is more popular than it actually is (and to collect as much user data as possible), its as easy for these same platforms to pay their creators significantly less due to the way it collects and distributes its payouts mixed with the way the algorithm is set up to promote theft and spam bots. Creating a creatorless perpetual money pit based on fake user traffic/ data. In some cases like TH-cam shorts, it not only causes the main income that is long form content to dwindle as punishment for not utilizing shorts, it also adds an extra layer of work (focusing on youtube shorts and long form) while again, paying its creators less. I know what I’m saying is a little off topic but i thought id mention this to the conversation from the perspective of a creator on these platforms.
Glad you said this. Our economy can stretch to fit a lot of interests, but this is an unregulated bubble lurking, that doesn't have to pop if managed better.
i wish more creators fought back against it instead of complying and changing what they do. good to see you again and i’m glad youre getting the side of creators out there
Watching this today, 1/19/25, after the ban went live last night… and following a breaking news announcement that it’s going back online. Distract and destabilize seems to be the game plan, while they destroy from within.
It’s also Trump’s very public protection racket played out in the open for all to see. He likes to think he’s a mafia don. In the meantime there’s some private deal where money is passed onto one of Trump’s many shadow organizations. It’s business as usual.
I agree with John's conclusion about the need for data privacy laws, but his overall analysis leaves out some aspects that he wouldn't be able to talk about without getting into trouble with his business daddy. Second Thought made a better analysis of the TikTok ban in their video 'The Real Reason The US Wants To Ban TikTok'.
Forgot to mention that the entire reason why Trump wanted to ban TikTok is because his feelings were hurt after a bunch of young people used it to organize a mass-booking of one of his rallies that made it look like thousands of people were going only to have an empty stadium.
Or the other big reason that the channel Second Thought talked about. That the American government wanted to ban TikTok because of all of the Palestinian support. Really disappointing that John didn’t mention that at all
@catserver8577 Gen Z and possibly even a good chunk of gen alpha are cooked. However, why not shut the door for the baby calves who are still popping up in the barn
@@catserver8577 I'd say more like water on a fire that's already burned down the house, but there's still the chance to mitigate FURTHER harm that could be done
If they were treating it as a direct threat, it MIGHT hold water, but the tact of "its too dangerously powerful, you must sell it to us" is laughably, stupidly transparent.
If you know anything about China and how it views America, you would see how obviously it is a destabilization weapon right out of their playbook. Banning propaganda and misinformation vehicles that are owned by foreign adversaries should not be controversial. The reason it is controversial is because the propaganda is working.
I live in Germany. Here we have data protection laws and when you enter a website, you are more often than not asked to confirm cookies or set preferences. Some sites are simply three or four buttons, others have one button each to reject all cookies and object to “legitimate interest”, on others again, you actually have to go through lists of vendors and reject/object each one individually. I personally don’t see why a US or Asian company (or wherever), that I will never have contact with, should have my data and store it on their servers for a year, in some cases even 5 or 10 years, so I go through those lists of up to 30-50 companies every time and switch each one off. It’s totally annoying, but it also opens your eyes as to how many companies that you don’t even know actually collect your data.
Has all your hard work been successful in slowing down the advertising? I do it in a hit and miss approach. Maybe I should be more diligent…and kudos to you 🎉
Its actually illegal what those companies are doing, under GDPR every website needs to have a 1 click opt out for all data collection that is not vital to the operation of the website. So every time you have to go through a list and object to all of them, that website is breaking the law, and you can file a complaint with your country's national data protection/privacy organisation. Theyre pretty backlogged right now so there will probably be a delay of a year or two before they get to it, but those companies will get fined.
@@user-zu5do6ri6r, we may owe society, but we don’t have to let corrupt congress hide information from us to protect one of their own. They owe us integrity in their leadership.
You mean classified? For a reason. I'm going to guess it's how they use the data. The data that they collect is literally everything, including keystrokes for everything on every app, including permission to allow those permissions to your devices linked to your profile. So any government employee has allowed them to access the computers and everything on them if they've ever used Tic-Tok on a government device or your government credentials on a private device with Tic-Tok.
Imagine you download an app and you didn’t get prompted whether you consented to the mic or camera being used and started presenting you with adverts based on personal conversations. That is precisly what Facebook were doing and almost had the app pulled from the Apple store as it’s in breach of their terms of service. Facebook were also investigated for interferring with the democratic process in the UK over Cambridge Analytica Ltd. and Brexit. This story isn’t about privacy this is about the American establisment wanting full control over it’s people and what they see, discuss and share.
As a Norwegian, whenever this topic have shown up, I've had the same concerns regarding the US based companies. Why should I trust Tiktok less than Google or Meta? Yeah, China is a very concerning country and the US is an ally... doesn't mean I would want the US to have it either
As an American I agree, the American companies take just as much data. They should be just as scrutinized. Honestly more so since America has terrible corporate greed issues.
Norway does have data privacy protection laws though. So does the rest of the EU. And American companies are compliant (or at the least, European nations force compliance here).
Nobody in their right mind would trust any US corporation, especially if their CEOs show up on the 'Forbes Real Time Billionaire's List'. The richer they are, the more they want from you, and their greed-sickness compels them to do ever increasingly bad things to keep themselves on that list. Norway should lock it's doors and turn out the lights when a US corporation comes knocking. My grandparent's should have never left.
In China, all companies must comply with their National Intelligence efforts. ~50% of the US is on Tiktok. The app requests permission for access to video/photos, geolocation, microphone, contacts info, camera access. With facial recognition, voice recognition, geolocation presumably at the fingertips of a “rival” country, concern is understandable. In the US, there are concerns about backdoors and government proxies. However, there is a STRONG culture of capitalism and gov skepticism. So in short, US uses data for $$$, China presumably uses it for state sponsored activities.
Tiktok, much like desperate trolls that were obviously starved of their mother's attention, is something that just holds no interest for me. I once downloaded it and tried to make videos but I simply can't give enough of an eff to be bothered with it and, as all things on the Internet work, unless you're willing to put in the time and make it flashy (or simply use a filter to fake the flashy and add music people like) it's not ever going to get engagement. But that's ✨exactly✨ my sweet spot. As of about 12 years old I got WAY TOO ATTENTION, and at 50 I've finally aged out of the vast amount of attention from a huge mass of horny dudes and angry women that want the attention of the horny men. I'm finally just a person again, like I was for the first 11 years of my life. It's GLORIOUS. So why would I go through the steps required to purposefully seek an audience by gaming an algorithm to pay attention to me? For what possible purpose? If people aren't willing to read what I have to write, it's obvious they have no interest. I'm not going to put on makeup and a showy dress for T&A appeal to get attention when I want to speak up about something. Trying to jam everything I need to say into a short TikTok video is like parts of John Oliver's show- he's speaking too fast about the really IMPORTANT parts and knows he'll lose the audience if he doesn't make another joke despite the gravity of what he's speaking about. On a random note, I just noticed that Trump looks vaguely like my dad, in the kind of dead eyed stare where they paused his tiktok video as John kept speaking. It's the exact look of a man who is mentally and emotionally trapped in a place a plethora of decades ago and REALLY doesn't like the world he's trapped in now but it's that or death so he just keeps existing with that bizarre expression and is angry he's not relevant. Thankfully my dad died so he won't be insulted by that as he hated Trump for being "a philandering, soul selling spineless schmuck that stands for absolutely nothing if he can make a buck off it; all he cares about is money and those people are the people that historically have always flushed our country straight down the toilet," and, as with most things, my father was indeed correct. That dead eyed stare of a man making a video telling people he's there to save a platform he himself tried to get rid of, on the platform telling people to vote for him because he'll save it. But he won't. He doesn't understand it and only uses it to ogle women younger than his own daughter. . . And, of course, to make money selling cheap Chinese garbage merch on a Chinese app with virtue signaling American flags everywhere, all of the items ignoring the actual flag code itself. What a lifeless husk of a person that desperately wants it to be the 1980's again.
ive been too old for all that nonsense back since i was in my teens XD had one look at facebook and friendster and all the other nonsense back then and said "nope not touching that"
As much as I dislike tiktok and short-form brainrot, a better solution would be to just crack down on companies collecting and selling data. But we all know that Congress never chooses the better solution.
As a non-US citizen, if the US is so worried about a foreign company doing what they do... Maybe we should also be worried about US-based tech giants being a national security threat
That just doesn't make sense. When the government says "national security threat" what they really mean is, in a time of war or conflict this thing poses a threat to the U.S. Government and/or U.S. Citizens. China is an adversary that the U.S. could potential have a conflict with in the next couple of decades and tik tok could easily be to compromise our country
Trump socially engineered the 2016 election using Cambridge Analytica, META's former analytics handler...so yeah we have an example of how any tech company is a liability
as a U.S. citizen in tech and security yes you should be more worried about what facebook will do with your data or Alphabet (parent company of google) or amazon will do than tiktok
So you trust the government that kills millions of its own citizens at a time and has gulags? If they do that to their own citizens what are they going to do to you?
How would you solve school shootings? If you have a great idea, start a lobbying campaign or search up some lobbyist groups. You’ll quickly learn the questions to your answers once you have conversations with our congressmens’ and congresswomens’ interns.
I hate to say it, but as a writer a lot of my Indie writer groups have sung praises for TikTok selling books. People who had ZERO sales for months advertising on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, suddenly were selling hundreds to thousands of books per month. I've not been one to trust it much either, but I can vouch for it's great for small businesses.
13:07 The main point: If you're not okay with TikTok collecting your data, then you also shouldn't be okay with Google and Meta collecting your data. A ban makes no sense. Pass a privacy law that stops companies, American and foreign, from collecting so much data on consumers in the first place.
I already don't have a Facebook so I guess it's time for protonmail (already a good idea) and using AskJeeves/Brave? Doesn't sound that bad to me. You're absolutely right.
How about you go and look at all of the permissions that TikTok has compared to other apps it is mind-boggling. I could obviously tell that you have no idea what you’re talking about and have done no research whatsoever. Also, you physically cannot get away from Google. In fact, they own TH-cam and almost every major platform also every single website uses their index. You try to sound like your tech savvy, but it’s not really working that well.
The singaporean being grilled by that congressman should've retorted with his own questioning, based on appearance: "how long have you served in the russian FSB? Do you hold a russian passport?"
😂🤡 In the near future, supporters of Donald Trump will demonstrate a cheap trick related to saving the social network TikTok. As part of this stunt, Trump will be presented as the saviour of TikTok, which is likely to lead to a significant increase in his ratings among a certain short-sighted audience. It will be another cheap show." 🤡😂
So long as they stay on Mao's Red Book and we don't get all the kid's videos on TH-cam, it's all good..... It'll be funny when the kids want to talk about gay and lesbian rights or democracy and protesting and get censored by the CCP! :D
This was a great breakdown. This show does a great job of making difficult and nuanced topics more accessible. I was waiting for him to talk about how many of the senators especially the few that created this bill have sooooo many stock shares in meta! Also how the current top investors of the app are American businesses, and how the people who want to buy it are part of the ADL out of Israel! There’s a lot to question around data privacy as he explained very well, but this issue goes incredibly deep into the pockets of US senators!
Tiktok isn't allowed in China. You can't download it, it doesn't work there. Let's do a thought experiment. Imagine that the US made a social media app that was banned in the US and it was only for Chinese people to consume. Imagine that half of chinese adults used it as their main source of news. Do you think that the Chinese government would be justifiably concerned? That a foreign government in a hostile country has a direct line to half their population
Yup, he missed out the part where Mitt Romney admitted it was pro Palestinian and he didn't want people saying the "raw footage" of what is actually happening in Gaza to women, children and older people. Implying that they only want you to see the media "specially curated" for you to see. Navarro media does a banging job on this recently
The fact that Temu and Shien are allowed but not tiktok shows that this has nothing to do with security. Temu collects just as much of not more data but it doesn't let users share the corruption in their own government
@TheVoidofNothing11 Do you seriously not have a single friend who isn't white? They play that app like a casino. My BiL is getting multiple boxes every single day front his Thai wife.
The last time American said there were weapons of mass destruction in a country i won't mention millions of people died for no reason and the country has never recovered
How about the over 300,000 american solders who died from health issues after they got home, directly related to their exposure to dioxin (Agent Orange). Sprayed since 1962 starting with JFK through Ford. All those fellow presidents knew in advance that the defoliant had between 3-5 times the level of the toxic Dioxin. They also NEVER told medical personal, military doctors or medical students signs of exposure, treatment if there are any! "Thank you for your service"??? Really??? Lest we forget!
22:45 - My favorite tenant of the American Justice System is "No one is above the law, except if you're a Republican whose been participating Child Sex Trafficking, the disruption of the peaceful transfer of power, or your net worth ends with more than 6 zeros. In which case, go straight to Boardwalk and collect $200 if you pass GO."
Oh, Yeah... That is Right, it's just One Person in the Whole Nation that Gets Special Treatment... If you are a Local Picking On an Out of Stater you are Essentially Above the Law! You have No Clue How the Nation Really Works Do You? Same Happens for many Democrats... How about the Whole Epstein List... I'd say the Clintons... But than I'd just be another Victim of them, in their Long List!
😂🤡 In the near future, supporters of Donald Trump will demonstrate a cheap trick related to saving the social network TikTok. As part of this stunt, Trump will be presented as the saviour of TikTok, which is likely to lead to a significant increase in his ratings among a certain short-sighted audience. It will be another cheap show." 🤡😂
And if you are a Mossad with JFK, New York 9/11, Mossad with Epstein-maxwell-cp-services, or a buddy/frequent visitor to the epstein services. No one has been even investigated. Peanut the Squirrel was investigated more than any of the epstein-maxwell-mossad DVD recorded people, all of whom are 100% known by the FBI and the CIA. Yet, nothing has happened, and it is not likely will ever happen. That is zionism and corruption for you.
I was talking about the reason for the demand to sell, which was not initiated by ByteDance. But also, if the dictate is that they must sell to an American company, that’s a limitation on potential bidders which could artificially keep the price low. Heck, they’d probably force a sale of $1 to some temporary holding company, which then resells to the highest domestic bidder for an enormous profit that doesn’t leave this country. If ByteDance is interested in money, they’d want to keep the ongoing revenue instead of being forced into selling.
@@neildolan3700 Really? If you were force to sell your thriving company under a short notice, you will never get even half of asset worth. Not to mention the company could worth double in a year. Imagine you force Musk to sell his Tesla share 2020.
I remember seeing Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in a history clip looking on in disbelief as a Hollywood screenwriter was hammered with the same questions during the McCarthy era.
It's crazy that the U.S is so behind on data privacy law, considering PERSONAL PRIVACY IS LITERALLY GUARANTEED IN THE CONSTITUTION. Yes, only against government and not private interest, but it speaks to a moral value this country was founded upon. A value that the government clearly has never cared about. Maybe we should consider these rights more broadly rather than just in binary ways like that.
Personal privacy is an *implied* right in the Constitution, one you arrive at that *must* exist based on the other named rights. But it's ultimately not black and white, and is in real danger of being curtailed by the Supreme Court.
Unfortunately it's not stated, but implied. And maybe you missed it but Roe v. Wade got overturned and the original ruling was based on the implied right to privacy. So the current SCOTUS isn't even holding that implied right in high regard.
@@SF_Bud Thanks for mentioning the Dobbs decision. The majority opinion from Alito was pretty clear on his opinion on the "right" to privacy. If the conservative court doesn't believe >50 years of abortion rights (under the _Roe_ decision precedent) doesn't count as "deeply rooted" in American history and tradition, then no rights are safe. Alito may as well void out the 14th Amendment because for the first 250ish years of America (colonial and national) slavery was perfectly legal. And Thomas's concurrence was even worse, bringing into question other rights arising from the whole substantive due process stuff, like gay marriage, contraception, gay relationships, etc. We're all deeply fucked at this point in time.
Concern trolling over a single app while the real issue is why the hell our phones are allowed to collect and redistribute our data to a whole host of corporations.
Ban mobile phone which has Tiktok is causing discomfort to the US politicians. That is why Huawei phone is banned bcos it refused to let CIA install a backdoor software to collect user's private data.
One very important point left out: Some members of congress and especially lobbyists despise how activists use TikTok, both to get organized and post videos that expose them.
This is actually the whole point. The data protection argument has always been disingenuous because American social media companies collect data in the same way and sell it to China, so China ends up with that data anyway. It’s all about controlling the flow of information and there’s been several leaked conversations and documents to back that up.
I don't think this was excluded so much as it's not relevant. Activists organize on all social media; if anything, TikTok's algorithm makes it marginally more difficult to organize on it due to arbitrary restrictions on language. TikTok just happens to be where young people are these days. Before TikTok, it was Twitter.
2:10 I will always find it disingenuous how TikTok is reduced to "bratty Gen-Z users dancing and making non-content". It's similar to reducing TH-cam to prank videos and challenges.
A summary: tiktok does everything alphabet, microsoft, X or meta do, but the company doesn't share the data with the us government so they don't like it. So instead of doing a European style GDPR they focus on just the app they don't control(or doesn't donate to their campaigns)
So you would rather have chinese overlords? Europe is also working to ban tiktok BTW. Why do you think china doesnt allow such programs within their borders unless they are owned by china? Here is a hint, they understand the power and influence it would give the United States over their people.
American tech companies do not share your data with the government unless they’re subpoenaed. TikTok has also used the app to track the location and harrass a journalist that published information that they didn’t like.
I wouldn’t be surprised that in the last four years ByteDance has made significant monetary contributions to keep their business afloat but that security hawks can’t find it in themselves to trust it a priori because that ‘feels an awful lot like bribery’ - which is, of course, a significant security concern.
This is skipping over the fact it's going to a foreign government. Tiktok is owned by a nation that isn't on the best terms with us, of course it gets a special condition. I don't get how this keeps getting missed. It's not that we can't see, it's that China can
@@taylorkirkland3529so his evil plan was to infiltrate the U.S. by… not having citizenship rights despite wanting his children to have them, in order to spy for a country he has never lived in and which is geopolitically and ideologically opposed to the actual country he was born in. I’m not saying tiktok is great, and that guy probably sucks (he’s a tech executive), but there’s just nothing to suggest he had any malicious intent related to any foreign country.
@@taylorkirkland3529 Because he lives in Singapore and he can come to the US on business visas as he normally does. What a silly question. Its 100% legal to marry outside your country for many countries. Look into IMBRA or the International Marriage Brokerage Regulations Act. The US is a a part of it. Even China is.
It isn't about cat videos & dances. TikTok is a lifeline for marginalized people, providing mental health support, financial support in disasters, and community for isolated individuals. It has saved lives and provided financial resources. Lawyers, doctors, and scientists educate and help people sift through misinformation.
@@PrinceCharmingsMom2930we are both here on TH-cam. Our information is already out there. I would rather the Chinese have my data than the incoming administration.
and whatsapp and everything else. sadly that wont happen because your market watchdogs are toothless and your entire government is corrupt to the bone. still, banning chinese malware is a good move.
Agreed! Look what Elon just did with Twitter. He totally put his thumb on the scale for Trump and even sent out FAKE texts pretending to be from the Kamala campaign. NO consequences! They have WAAAAAAY too much power!
@007kingifrit Prove it, like JO just did that you're full of it ... Don't just make claims using "evil" without thinking it through. Face it, YOU don't even believe you! 😉
@@hadara69 tiktok is a threat to our national security, owned by a communist entity engaged in genocide and seeking to expand their borders. they are our enemy. grow up child, a comedian is not a source of news.
What if you work for the DoD and have a security clearance, or you’re a politician, and you’re using TikTok to have an affair, and now China knows they can leverage that information to get you to send them classified documents? Just seems like there are some dangers there with an adversarial nation having access to our data and online habits that could be used to compromise some folks.
I mean governments can spy on their citizens within their own borders unless there's a specific privacy law that prevents that. Likewise, China spies on their own citizens and has an oversize control on their private lives. Do I like that innocent people are suffering? No, but that's not my country. Chinese politicians love to use Westerner media to spread their false narrative while at the same time banning that very Western media in China. This isn't a whataboutism issue. Spying on people is bad everywhere and maybe we should vote for people who focuses on privacy policies within our country.
USA surveillance is world wide they know all the crucial information that they get from it from every country. They are now reacting when china is doing it to them. Why because they know the kind of info that can be collected and they do collect domestically and internationally. They are scared because they know how damming it can be, why? Because it's what they do to everyone eles and throwing a hissy fit when it's not only them who can do it
See, that's the quiet part none of the politicians want to say out loud, and the show is focusing on the arguments politicans are publicly using because those are the most wide spread. The other quiet part is that a lot of the politicians supporting a TikTok ban own stock in Meta and will directly profit if people go from TikTok to Instagram. And the other other quiet part is that Trump is now trying to "save" TikTok to get more support from Gen Z (Despite instigating talks of a ban in the first place [Also the show did cover that part but I don't see anyone in the comments talking about it]).
'Thick Tok' is for influencing the minds of millions of morons! China at any moment, can at the press of a button can alter the user content to cause outrage with misinformation, triggering unrest in our democracy. The proof it happens is Elon Musk has already been altering the feed of X -Twitter users with far right misinformation. And thicko people believe it as it goes viral. And Meta is about to do the same. What's worrying is these guys all want an oligarchy. And Trump is there puppet to do it. Notice how they all suddenly kissed his as*
this guy is bought, listen to the video it’s full of propaganda I’m almost sure he’s working for the chinese government, maybe some chinese company owns his handlers
@@derekGibsoundSG viewing jon oliver and finding him informative at all is a poor reflection on you. i come here to see what bad people think. nothing more. if your news has a laugh track, it is trying to stop you from thinking.
I don't really think it's more nuanced than most people think. Congress is banning tiktok for doing the exact same things all other social media companies do. The only difference is who owns the company, or more realistically because American social media companies have been lobbying for over a decade. And since it's not blanket protection for all American's data from all social media companies all tiktok has to do is buy the data from american companies for pennies. It's a bad law written by people who don't understand the technology they're legislating.
i'm glad LWT points out that our own US companies pose the very same threats to our privacy, because that really really... really needs to be addressed.
Not the same threat. Tiktok hacks American citizens phones for the Chinese government. Google and Facebook hack your phone for the American government. False equivalency. As bad as the US government is. China is much worse.
@@franjkav No it ain't. It's in the agreement. It's buried in 100 pages of legal nonsense but it's there. All they gotta do is show your consent and say "Not our fault you didn't read it."
And yet, Mr Oliver said zero words of the real reason: Allowing Pro-Palestinian content and facts. That is NOT allowed in the USofA type of "no corruption, much freedom"-mossad style faked dreamland.
I think we all collectively realized the potential risks of having any personal information on computers connected to the internet to begin with, shrugged, and embarked on a technological odyssey together fully knowing it probably doesn't end well.
How hasn't it ended well? Internet connectivity is one of humanity's greatest achievements. Also the "I'm nobody" argument still stands up remarkably well for all intents and purposes.
@@robgriffin4801it hasn’t ended badly yet. I love the internet and I think it’s absolutely amazing and has done great things for humanity. But it’s not over. It hasn’t ended, and we don’t know how things might change. For better or for worse
It's getting banned for being owned by a company that has to put the interests of an adversarial foreign government over its own business. If they spin it out or sell it it's not banned
The fact that there's no public evidence that bytedance has acted on any directions from the Chinese government doesn't mean anything. There's no way we could know without deep espionage and of course we wouldn't want to reveal the intelligence methods we discovered any evidence through The point is that under the current regime the Chinese government has the right and ability to freely manipulate tiktok with no public visibility and that in and of itself is a huge problem. Whether they haven't done it already or we just don't have evidence that can be made public or they haven't done it yet, the fact remains that they can do it whenever they want and it's a huge threat Yes we should have blanket privacy and algorithmic manipulation regulations that apply to all American companies too. Also we shouldn't have major media companies dominating in America that are subject to the control of hostile foreign governments. All bytedance needs to do is sell off or spin out tiktok to a company not under the thumb of the CCP and everyone can keep using it. Why is that off the table for them?
@GreenC The difference is that those are US companies, the issue is that China having easy access to US citizens information and spreading any sort of political or foreign propaganda is a legitimate concern. Stop trying to cope and justify garbage like TikTok.
@@ianp5367 yes, as U.S companies never do no wrongs and never access your information and spreading any sort of political or foreign propaganda on any other platforms before, right?
As an Asian American (Indian-Asian, I have already sadly experienced some adverse experiences basically every week ever since Trump got elected), I want to comment on the male named "Cotton" (its like Mike Judge himself wrote this part) hassling TikTok's CEO. This is the precise experience I have when I meet people who questioned or attempted to suggest I'm suspect or don't belong somewhere or am a criminal for the crime of being a nonwhite, visibly brown woman. I can empathize a lot with Tik Tok's CEO, look at the look of fear/concern in his eyes, its the feeling and sense of confusion/fear that I've experienced myself. Even the White Cotton would-be-plantation-owner is doubling down in that way you can TELL every "polite" racist acts, thinking they'll manage to interrogate you into a corner where they'll "get you" after breaking you down emotionally through incessantly questioning and gaslighting you on your own nationality/identity.
Another important part od the puzzle is that multiple senators have 100s of thousands worth in meta stocks. Between janurary 2024 (when the bill got introduced) and now they have been trading meta, x and google stocks non stop. A big portion of the us senate and espasically vocal supporters of the tiktok ban will directly financially gain from this.
John pointing out how shameless TikTok users are is so funny bc of how true it is. There are no secrets, no guilt, no shame on that app. A truly lawless land 😂
It is so weird seeing this as someone who was in their late teens when Facebook started getting popular. Kids growing up now are in such a public square all the time, I wouldn't have been able to handle the way things are now tbh.
Speaking as an american it feels really odd that American social media companies have been collecting data from people around the world for decades now but as soon as a company from another country does it, it becomes ominous.
yea none of these arguments hold water. all social media companies are the same and nothing is going to change because its good for business. The only good reason i saw for banning tik tok was just economic reciprocity. It wasn't mentioned here. We allow a chinese company to have free reign in america when they don't allow any of our tech companies to do business there. But its too late now because it wasn't dealt with when tik tok first arrived. Now theyre trying to walk it back after its taken significant market share from our companies and under a national security threat we have no details of.
I think the difference is that if the right law passes in America then those companies will need to delete the data and currently the government can't look at any of it. On the other hand with the current laws in China the government can already view/use/store the data.
you're not getting the point. Most companies (esp american) collect the data to help with personalized ad purposes so 1000s of companies can more efficiently spend ad dollars. China has the potential to do much worse and put the thumb on the scale of our information distribution. Also, china blocks nearly ALL US internet tech companies in there "great firewall". There should be reciprocal approaches
More that they don't want to. Google's algorithm for searches was the best in the world. Then they discovered how much money there was, not in predicting and giving people what they want, but rather directing them to whatever their partners are paying for. I see two futures for TikTok: 1. The same shitification as every other platform. (If the company's goal is money.) 2. It remains the greatest algorithm of all time forever. (If the goal is spying on people and they don't care about Tik Tok itself being a loss leader.) Funny, the Chinese spying on us is actually the PREFERABLE option.
@@consciousness3466 Before app stores, we could download a program and install it on the pc or phone. Has that capability secretly removed or do people forget how to do that?
this is a pretty standard suit, white shirt with a deep navy jacket and darker blue tie. The color of the suit with the background is a nice contrast with the tiktok thumb nail through the episode. It’s not the most expressive suit, but it did its job. 5/10
I have no idea what is going on with that comment but I wanna join in. I agree that if the suit was a lighter blue it may have pulled focus from the thumbnail. A dark suit, like black shade, may have not really shown up or might make john look like an undertaker. I will add that I do believe John Oliver would be the kind of guy who, when he gets a 5/10 rating for a suit he owns would be totally fine. Not for him the reverse searching of IP addresses, probably. Also I have to give the content of this show a 10/10 . Although unfortunately the grading system means you have to DIVIDE that score by his previous suit score... damn 😂
@ just to clarify, I’ve given several of his other suits way higher rating in the past, often suits in earlier seasons have some of my favorite combos. I really miss the bright ties and striped shirts that we used to enjoy every week in comparison to now when we only see them every once in a while. I agree this is a 10/10 show and the content isn’t reflected by the suit choices, but I feel like a bit of joy might be added to the lovely depressing content that we are use to having on this show.
@ What do you think about the combo "suit on the top of the hoodie" or "hoodie on the top of a suit" like the Australian late nigh host Rove McManus used to sport round November of 2008? Can it be worked out in such a way it's classy, and exquisitely elegant for fans of both the formal and informal in one edgy yet classy textile composition out there?
I agree with your logic and rating here. This is a firm 5.0/10.0 on the suit scale. Personally, I’d like to see a bit more bravery from John-perhaps the occasional burgundy jacket, with a classic light grey shirt or even a turquoise shirt (+1.0 for boldness); perhaps a stylish olive jacket, for Earth Day, and a pink tuxedo on valentine’s! C’mon, John, push the limits! The key to a long and happy marriage is making an effort to keep things interesting, John. Try on some new outfits for us, damnit!
john suits a 5/10 suit. He's not a snappy dressing 'stylish' kind of guy. He's not 'cool', or 'expressive'. He's sad and english. This is not meant to be all snarky, read the air quotes the way john would and I hope you'll get the tone and idea. Love rating his suits ep by ep regardless though
Meanwhile Trump and Company are threatening to leave NATO because some European countries are putting restrictions on Twitter. Talk about hypocrisy at its finest.
You're wrong. It is about data Chinese collection and spying. The U.S. government isn't worried about domestic companies as much because U.S. companies aren't trying to destroy the U.S. They just want to be rich. China is though. U.S. companies want your data for profit, China wants your data to weaken and control the U.S.
From the part of the show HBO didn't upload: "Luckily all our environmental laws are older than 18 years, so Rep. Gaetz shouldn't have much interest in them."
@raymondkassay3610 Lets deregulate America till people cannot afford milk🎉🎉. MAGA 2024🎉🎉🎉
@@raymondkassay3610And this is why education is vital to a free society. Regulation built modern day America, buddy
@raymondkassay3610 can't wait for our country to be ran by r*pists, pdf files, and abusers. Protect women and children btw.
God that’s grim and hilarious in one go.
@@raymondkassay3610 real question: when pill-mill Trump deports millions of americans who harvest our food and do service jobs, who is going to fill those positions? Americans dont want to work on dairies or farms, or do service jobs. unemployment is below 4% anyway. So, who is going to pick/grow our food?
Food for thought. Rather than just ban 1 app, why not just crack down on what kind of data companies can collect when people use their platform? Helps the American public and solves their concerns.
But then again the people currently in office and those just recently elected will never do anything to actually help the American public, let alone take money away from big corporations.
But how can we make money off of that? /s
That would fuck up our non spying U.S. Businesses.
/s in case.
The Hypocrisy is... expected.
Because regardless of privacy regulations, there is no amount of data we should feel comfortable handing directly over to the government, especially the the authoritarian one of a hostile nation.
@@krombopulos_michaelYour nation is more hostile to you than China
Well that’s just downright sensible, and we can’t have that!
For the Singaporean Citizen scene, all I can think of is King of the Hill
"So, Mr. Kahn, are you Chinese or Japanese?"
"I lived in California for the past 20 years. I'm originally from Laos."
".... huh?"
"Laos. We are Laotian."
"The ocean? What ocean?"
"We are Laotian - from Laos, stupid! It's a land locked country in south east Asia. It's between Vietnam and Thailand, okay? Population 4.7 million"
"... soooo, are you Chinese or Japanese?"
🤣🤣For real ! As if they are deaf and only want their intrusive questions on written record as if they are a terrier going after a rat down a tunnel. They don't solve anything. Don't prove anything other than they are total A$$ Hools with no purpose other than to spend taxpayers money investigating anything. I'm surprised they don't ask how money toilet paper each defendant uses per poo.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
"Yep"
"Yep"
"Yep"
Mmmm-hmmm"
I tell you what 😂
yet he somehow understands boomhower
Amen. The lawmakers went the wrong way on this. Instead of banning one app, they should have passed sweeping online data privacy laws.
But we all know they wont. The guys who say "trust us, we are protecting your privacy" are the ones who passed a law allowing internet companies to SELL our personal data. Not without provisioning an exception for themselves, btw.
Of all the G 20 nations the USA has the weakest privacy laws.
th-cam.com/video/IC6BeeUFuE0/w-d-xo.html
But this proves that many repubs and dems are being bribed/influenced by the rich, so they're willing to demonize TikTok so Zuckerberg and others can reclaim all that mineable data.
"We've been behind on this issue for an embarrassingly long time" could apply to LOTS of things in the U.S. at this point.
Healthcare comes to mind immediately.
😂😂😂excellent point 👉
Not only the U.S. has these problems.
Wah wah so we don't need to do anything about it do we
@@spyfire242Exactly my first thought as a European.
Only a good guy with a metaphorical gun can stop a bad guy with a metaphorical gun.
well done, well done
That metaphorical gun better not make me afraid for my families or my life. Cause I don't use fake guns.
@@williamwhitney7395It's not the fake guns fault, though. It didn't know better.
@@williamwhitney7395damn... i hope horror movies stear clear
@@catxtrallways How about the location of their children?
As a non-American I find it interesting, how personal data suddenly becomes an issue, once the new trending app is non-american. But what do I know... Hi Google! :)
Our government is so good at using the media to direct public conversation. We're all too distracted and uneducated, and politicians never actually say what they mean, and yet everyone thinks they do, while simultaneously claiming that all the politicians they don't like are lying about everything. It's baffling.
Big brother doesn’t like it when any one else spies on their citizens
😂😂😂😂
For a reason. I'm going to guess it's how they use the data. The data that they collect is literally everything, including keystrokes for everything on every app, including permission to allow those permissions to your devices linked to your profile. So any government employee has allowed them to access the computers and everything on them if they've ever used Tic-Tok on a government device or your government credentials on a private device with Tic-Tok.
Of course in the US its a big deal. It could be weaponized. Other countries should be worried about US companies as well.
John, in defending Tiktok by pointing out Meta/Google's platforms are equally bad, he is not defending Tiktok, he's showing us they're all terrible.
I really wanted him to ask TicTok what they would do with his dick pics
Yeah, that's the point he was making.
and meta and twitter have gotten a lot worse recently. TBH we're having a relatively terrifying right wing social media take over.
The point is moreso that there's no good reason for banning the platform, since it doesn't stop China from buying your data from the other apps, and how this ban only exists to protect Silicon Valley; not the American people.
STOP 🛑 X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. STOP all influencers nonsense!
Some poor intern had to look up sonic feet and that’s now on his search history forever.
They probably have a dedicated computer for the weird searches they have to make. Just don’t look at the ads on webpages, they lost an intern that way
Forget his search history, every time they close their eyes for the rest of their lives, there's a chance Sonic's stinky feet will be there
the intern probably likes sonic feet, dont kink shame.
Those could have come from his own collection. We'd need to ask those big tech to know....
I would imagine just putting the browser in incognito mode
Love how the iron giant is one of John Oliver's "hear me outs" 😂
We listen, we don't judge
The man is truly always on trend. 😂
😂🤡 In the near future, supporters of Donald Trump will demonstrate a cheap trick related to saving the social network TikTok. As part of this stunt, Trump will be presented as the saviour of TikTok, which is likely to lead to a significant increase in his ratings among a certain short-sighted audience. It will be another cheap show." 🤡😂
@@P.A.theDarkstar I judge... because I love that movie.
Voiced by Vin Diesel
I see his point
We have publicly owned radio stations.
We have publicly owned television broadcasting.
Why do we not have publicly owned internet service providers and social media spaces?
Because of the insane fearmongering against socialism & communism. Anything „communal“ is bad!! Only hyperindividualism and capitalism good.
Technically, PBS is on TH-cam.
You might have noticed that the GOP has tried to defund A and B on a regular basis. There is no way the incoming administration is going for C.
@Thiefnuker The government shouldn't be funding the first 2 things. This is a classic 2 wrongs don't make a right.
Be careful what you wish for when twitter becomes state media under Trump hehe
Man, the presentation, the flow, the story building, the delivery.. this is one of the masterpiece for education purpose.
The point that Google and Meta are doing the exact same thing only on a far larger scale, can not be stressed enough!
They are American companies so it’s irrelevant.
Byte Dance brought this exact thing up during the hearing, and Congress' actual reaponse was "They're not Chinese, they don't count."
I guess ...but you can sue/put in jail the owners of a US company for misuse (however actually real or unreal 🤷🏻💲💲💲)
CIA doesn't have an office in the Google building...the Chinese intelligence services have a literal office at tiktok.i believe China sets rules on content/algorithms for media companies...I'm not even sure FB is allowed in China...gotta be easier to argue/fight a company like Google as a us citizen than the Chinese government as a Chinese citizen.
Would you say that the American companies have the same relationship with the American government as Chinese companies have with the Chinese government?
Are they going to use that data in an active conflict against you, like China is preparing to?
Seeing an American senator basically shout “YOU ARE A CHINESE” to a Singaporean while being corrected constantly sums up America
But there are Singaporean Chinese, not so?
@ yes but after the tenth time someone says “I’m not Chinese I’m from Singapore” and he kept yelling about China I feel it’s just racism or ignorance at that point
Most Americans are shockingly ignorant to history and geography, even our own 😔
@nourzohar3538 legal nationality vs ethnic background
@@HobbiesGamesChillin yes majority of Singaporeans are Chinese from the dominant Han ancestry clan
Guy on Fox News calling TikTok junk food for our brains is chef's kiss irony.
TikTok is junk food for our brains. Fox News is a cigarette with an asbestos filter mesh.
And lets now hear how they praise that Trump stopped the ban
All mainstream media is garbage … fox is the same as msnbc
Don't you guys still believe Russia collusion conspiracies?
I mean... he's right. Ironically so, but still right 😅
I appreciate how Mr Oliver presents all the facts and truths while minimising any bias. Maybe Faux could watch and learn
Good thing I don't have Tik-Tok, and only consume short form media on every other app
It's not just about the short form content, it's the rate that it spreads misinformation and disinformation and it's Chinese owned and operated, creating even more of a national security risk. It puts most other apps to shame in that regard.
@@Sagesatlol no it doesn’t. Twitter is the king of misinformation and Facebook definitely takes second place. TikTok is more strict about everything across the board when it comes to social media companies. You can’t even say certain words like gun without being flagged
Short form video is absolute cancer. Its time waste and highly addicting. Most people can never stop doing it for a long time. And it completely fucks up children. Short form video infinity scroll should be banned or at least heavily regulated. It brain rots a BILLION people who could do something usefull otherwise like god damn learn something read or anything.
@@illuminant777XtX i agree, short video format has to be regulated or smthn. Its hijacking human brain
@@Sagesat Oh yes its a problem. Fluid intelligence in humanity is on a decline (most data shows towards social media/media usage) first time ever its observated and at the same time AI is on the rise. We are in for some awakening.
23:13 yeah I remember when the PATRIOT Act was just to “Keep Americans safe from terrorists” and then we ended up finding out it was just for the government to SPY on us without a warrant, and the backlash of that being public will always make me laugh. Congress members were screaming safety, safety, safety but most of America was having non of it
The real purpose... Keep the IRS safe from missing out on American money. 🤣
What do you mean most of America was having none of it? It's still, in practical terms, in effect. It lasted 19 years before not being renewed, but all the infrastructure is still there.
Yeah, I'm sick of this, "You kids don't know what's good for you. Let us make all the decisions for you." Like they're [Congress, i.e. bought officials by lobbyists] our fucking parents, and we're [millennials, gen z, and younger] fucking 3 years old.
You [Congress] educated us, and now you're regretting *how much* you educated us.
The difference is we live in a democracy with durable mechanisms for correcting overreach.
"we ended up finding out"
Some of us even read the bill before it was passed and tried to sound the alarm, but were ignored.
And, continued to sound the alarm for years about several of that administrations problems, but were ignored.
And, continued to sound the alarm when these sorts of activities continued under the Hope & Change guy from the opposite party, and weren't just ignored, but lambasted for going against team "Good Guy."
Until one day, some of us realize that all of our youthful exuberance went to waste-on an electorate too ignorant to take political action in it's own interests-and just shout bitter retrospective posts into the void of Internet comments.
I feel not enough people talk about this new wave of TikTok like formats on all platforms actually being incredibly bad for creators as much as its users. As easy as this new format is to artificially grow user traffic to trick investors into believing a platform is more popular than it actually is (and to collect as much user data as possible), its as easy for these same platforms to pay their creators significantly less due to the way it collects and distributes its payouts mixed with the way the algorithm is set up to promote theft and spam bots. Creating a creatorless perpetual money pit based on fake user traffic/ data. In some cases like TH-cam shorts, it not only causes the main income that is long form content to dwindle as punishment for not utilizing shorts, it also adds an extra layer of work (focusing on youtube shorts and long form) while again, paying its creators less.
I know what I’m saying is a little off topic but i thought id mention this to the conversation from the perspective of a creator on these platforms.
Glad you said this. Our economy can stretch to fit a lot of interests, but this is an unregulated bubble lurking, that doesn't have to pop if managed better.
I think it’s a valuable subject too, even if a little off of the main subject of this segment. hope you’re doing well SomeThingElse :)
Tik Tok was created in China. China has more fraud than the rest of the world combined.
You have 4 million subscribers. You’re huge.
i wish more creators fought back against it instead of complying and changing what they do. good to see you again and i’m glad youre getting the side of creators out there
Watching this today, 1/19/25, after the ban went live last night… and following a breaking news announcement that it’s going back online. Distract and destabilize seems to be the game plan, while they destroy from within.
It’s also Trump’s very public protection racket played out in the open for all to see. He likes to think he’s a mafia don. In the meantime there’s some private deal where money is passed onto one of Trump’s many shadow organizations. It’s business as usual.
Thank you for wrapping it up properly in the end. We just need data privacy laws that apply to all companies.
Bot
I'm not sure you nor the writers nor the general public understand the "whole of society" threat that China uniquely presents.
He did not hit this point hard enough. We need privacy protections from all businesses.
I agree with John's conclusion about the need for data privacy laws, but his overall analysis leaves out some aspects that he wouldn't be able to talk about without getting into trouble with his business daddy. Second Thought made a better analysis of the TikTok ban in their video 'The Real Reason The US Wants To Ban TikTok'.
@@williamgraham822how is this a bot account I agree with him we need data privacy in all apps and in just all company's In general 😅
Forgot to mention that the entire reason why Trump wanted to ban TikTok is because his feelings were hurt after a bunch of young people used it to organize a mass-booking of one of his rallies that made it look like thousands of people were going only to have an empty stadium.
How did that work? Were the tickets paid, because if they were that seems counterproductive.
i find that very funny tbh
Or the other big reason that the channel Second Thought talked about. That the American government wanted to ban TikTok because of all of the Palestinian support. Really disappointing that John didn’t mention that at all
@@Linkman8912 No, it was to have the organizers believe far more people were going to be in attendance than there was.
th-cam.com/video/xEDGZlG_41k/w-d-xo.htmlsi=f9OCZtCNG2XAUmCO
Maybe we need robust public protection laws on all forms of social media, not just TikTok
Yeah, I feel like having the largest social media platform being owned by a trump sycophant who now works with him is PROBABLY an issue
China doesn’t care what laws we pass.
At this point, it's kind of like closing the barn door after all the cows have run away.
@catserver8577 Gen Z and possibly even a good chunk of gen alpha are cooked. However, why not shut the door for the baby calves who are still popping up in the barn
@@catserver8577 I'd say more like water on a fire that's already burned down the house, but there's still the chance to mitigate FURTHER harm that could be done
Im so glad we have Oliver to accompany us thru these dark times
If they were treating it as a direct threat, it MIGHT hold water, but the tact of "its too dangerously powerful, you must sell it to us" is laughably, stupidly transparent.
If you know anything about China and how it views America, you would see how obviously it is a destabilization weapon right out of their playbook. Banning propaganda and misinformation vehicles that are owned by foreign adversaries should not be controversial. The reason it is controversial is because the propaganda is working.
Yes. Considering all the U.S. apps collect and store the same info TT is allegedly storing.
That doesn't change the facts, though. Sure, you can use whataboutism, but a Tik Tok ban is justified if they don't sell.
@@Atrail_Mckinley4786 Call it whataboutism, or call it justice, either way
To be fair the bill allows any company to buy it not just an American on. personally, I would find it funny if an Indian company bought it.
I live in Germany. Here we have data protection laws and when you enter a website, you are more often than not asked to confirm cookies or set preferences. Some sites are simply three or four buttons, others have one button each to reject all cookies and object to “legitimate interest”, on others again, you actually have to go through lists of vendors and reject/object each one individually. I personally don’t see why a US or Asian company (or wherever), that I will never have contact with, should have my data and store it on their servers for a year, in some cases even 5 or 10 years, so I go through those lists of up to 30-50 companies every time and switch each one off. It’s totally annoying, but it also opens your eyes as to how many companies that you don’t even know actually collect your data.
Has all your hard work been successful in slowing down the advertising? I do it in a hit and miss approach. Maybe I should be more diligent…and kudos to you 🎉
Its actually illegal what those companies are doing, under GDPR every website needs to have a 1 click opt out for all data collection that is not vital to the operation of the website.
So every time you have to go through a list and object to all of them, that website is breaking the law, and you can file a complaint with your country's national data protection/privacy organisation. Theyre pretty backlogged right now so there will probably be a delay of a year or two before they get to it, but those companies will get fined.
We have that in America too.
Install the ghostery extension, enable auto-deny cookies option and enjoy the web a little bit more again
@@Cherrysmith2809oh we do?
If my taxpayer-funded math teacher can demand I show my work, then I demand Congress shows theirs.
And this is why we have politicians like we have, Because we have nothing better to offer. Everyone is crap. 😂
@Ursicus-td8zt You have it backwards. We owe society. Society doesn't owe us.
@@user-zu5do6ri6r, we may owe society, but we don’t have to let corrupt congress hide information from us to protect one of their own. They owe us integrity in their leadership.
Eat your veggies and in about 25 years you can look it up when it's declassified.
You mean classified? For a reason. I'm going to guess it's how they use the data. The data that they collect is literally everything, including keystrokes for everything on every app, including permission to allow those permissions to your devices linked to your profile. So any government employee has allowed them to access the computers and everything on them if they've ever used Tic-Tok on a government device or your government credentials on a private device with Tic-Tok.
Imagine you download an app and you didn’t get prompted whether you consented to the mic or camera being used and started presenting you with adverts based on personal conversations.
That is precisly what Facebook were doing and almost had the app pulled from the Apple store as it’s in breach of their terms of service.
Facebook were also investigated for interferring with the democratic process in the UK over Cambridge Analytica Ltd. and Brexit.
This story isn’t about privacy this is about the American establisment wanting full control over it’s people and what they see, discuss and share.
The fact that John brought up Xena Warrior Princess shows that he knows me better than he ever intended too, cuz yes, Xena was my bisexual awakening.
I mean duh
Haha exactly
Xena and Gabrielle were a lot of peoples bi awakenings.
I didn't understand why I liked Ioulas so much for decades...
funny cuz when i saw that line I was like "ugh consume more product and get excited for next product"
As a Norwegian, whenever this topic have shown up, I've had the same concerns regarding the US based companies. Why should I trust Tiktok less than Google or Meta? Yeah, China is a very concerning country and the US is an ally... doesn't mean I would want the US to have it either
Bingo! You got it. This is a global conflict over which psychopathic cabal is going to own you and your children, forever
As an American I agree, the American companies take just as much data. They should be just as scrutinized. Honestly more so since America has terrible corporate greed issues.
Norway does have data privacy protection laws though. So does the rest of the EU. And American companies are compliant (or at the least, European nations force compliance here).
Nobody in their right mind would trust any US corporation, especially if their CEOs show up on the 'Forbes Real Time Billionaire's List'. The richer they are, the more they want from you, and their greed-sickness compels them to do ever increasingly bad things to keep themselves on that list. Norway should lock it's doors and turn out the lights when a US corporation comes knocking. My grandparent's should have never left.
In China, all companies must comply with their National Intelligence efforts. ~50% of the US is on Tiktok. The app requests permission for access to video/photos, geolocation, microphone, contacts info, camera access. With facial recognition, voice recognition, geolocation presumably at the fingertips of a “rival” country, concern is understandable. In the US, there are concerns about backdoors and government proxies. However, there is a STRONG culture of capitalism and gov skepticism. So in short, US uses data for $$$, China presumably uses it for state sponsored activities.
I’m in the “I’m too old” camp. I fall somewhere between TikTok and hour plus podcasts. Your show falls perfectly in my sweet spot.
this comment exactly
😂😂😂😂😂this show fits perfectly in the trash that where the dem party is too. Trump 2024.
@@donaldtrumpsmom4575Linda McMahon and Dr Oz 🤣
The second least satisfying "I told you so" in recent history 😢
Tiktok, much like desperate trolls that were obviously starved of their mother's attention, is something that just holds no interest for me. I once downloaded it and tried to make videos but I simply can't give enough of an eff to be bothered with it and, as all things on the Internet work, unless you're willing to put in the time and make it flashy (or simply use a filter to fake the flashy and add music people like) it's not ever going to get engagement.
But that's ✨exactly✨ my sweet spot.
As of about 12 years old I got WAY TOO ATTENTION, and at 50 I've finally aged out of the vast amount of attention from a huge mass of horny dudes and angry women that want the attention of the horny men. I'm finally just a person again, like I was for the first 11 years of my life. It's GLORIOUS.
So why would I go through the steps required to purposefully seek an audience by gaming an algorithm to pay attention to me? For what possible purpose?
If people aren't willing to read what I have to write, it's obvious they have no interest. I'm not going to put on makeup and a showy dress for T&A appeal to get attention when I want to speak up about something.
Trying to jam everything I need to say into a short TikTok video is like parts of John Oliver's show- he's speaking too fast about the really IMPORTANT parts and knows he'll lose the audience if he doesn't make another joke despite the gravity of what he's speaking about.
On a random note, I just noticed that Trump looks vaguely like my dad, in the kind of dead eyed stare where they paused his tiktok video as John kept speaking. It's the exact look of a man who is mentally and emotionally trapped in a place a plethora of decades ago and REALLY doesn't like the world he's trapped in now but it's that or death so he just keeps existing with that bizarre expression and is angry he's not relevant.
Thankfully my dad died so he won't be insulted by that as he hated Trump for being "a philandering, soul selling spineless schmuck that stands for absolutely nothing if he can make a buck off it; all he cares about is money and those people are the people that historically have always flushed our country straight down the toilet," and, as with most things, my father was indeed correct.
That dead eyed stare of a man making a video telling people he's there to save a platform he himself tried to get rid of, on the platform telling people to vote for him because he'll save it. But he won't. He doesn't understand it and only uses it to ogle women younger than his own daughter. . . And, of course, to make money selling cheap Chinese garbage merch on a Chinese app with virtue signaling American flags everywhere, all of the items ignoring the actual flag code itself.
What a lifeless husk of a person that desperately wants it to be the 1980's again.
ive been too old for all that nonsense back since i was in my teens XD
had one look at facebook and friendster and all the other nonsense back then and said "nope not touching that"
I just KNOW John Oliver is about to lose his mind when he sees the news.
John's probably all pumped on stand by for next season knowing that he missed a lot that happened in just New York, Korea, New Zealand, Gaza...
As much as I dislike tiktok and short-form brainrot, a better solution would be to just crack down on companies collecting and selling data. But we all know that Congress never chooses the better solution.
Not when the worse solution is funding their campaigns they don't.
Data collection is important for developing AI
@@charybdis8113even worse
@@charybdis8113 good, ban data harvesting anyway, fuck 'em
@@charybdis8113 oh no... anyway!
As a non-US citizen, if the US is so worried about a foreign company doing what they do... Maybe we should also be worried about US-based tech giants being a national security threat
Yeah, you definitely should be. Those companies would ruin your life for $5.
As an American, I would say that's probably a good thing to be worried about.
That just doesn't make sense. When the government says "national security threat" what they really mean is, in a time of war or conflict this thing poses a threat to the U.S. Government and/or U.S. Citizens. China is an adversary that the U.S. could potential have a conflict with in the next couple of decades and tik tok could easily be to compromise our country
Trump socially engineered the 2016 election using Cambridge Analytica, META's former analytics handler...so yeah we have an example of how any tech company is a liability
as a U.S. citizen in tech and security yes you should be more worried about what facebook will do with your data or Alphabet (parent company of google) or amazon will do than tiktok
So basically government saying how dare you track our citizens that’s our job
No it's the job of their donor social media companies
Yeah, well, one problem at a time. The Chinese taking our money leaves us all unable to deal with our own crooked billionaire class. 😂
Well said.
So you trust the government that kills millions of its own citizens at a time and has gulags? If they do that to their own citizens what are they going to do to you?
You id...t
Absolutely right. Blame the other guy who does the same thing.
When you can't figure out how to make a better mousetrap!
"Metaphorical gun violence will not stand!" 🤣
Yup, its true. China is dangerous.
Metaphorical thoughts and prayers.
@@matthewsanchez7953 😂 plz
@@matthewsanchez7953 ❤❤❤❤ THIS!!!!
Why can't the government be as concerned about school shootings as they are about TikTok?
Because there are no big corporate interests to shell out $$$ to stop school shootings.
How would you solve school shootings? If you have a great idea, start a lobbying campaign or search up some lobbyist groups. You’ll quickly learn the questions to your answers once you have conversations with our congressmens’ and congresswomens’ interns.
Simple, ban guns and/or have better gun control laws like in Europe
They are actually equally concerned. They are just more concerned about providing aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and other places.
Because China is at war with us.
I hate to say it, but as a writer a lot of my Indie writer groups have sung praises for TikTok selling books. People who had ZERO sales for months advertising on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, suddenly were selling hundreds to thousands of books per month. I've not been one to trust it much either, but I can vouch for it's great for small businesses.
you’re right it’s great for small business and has changed so many lives. The amount of money that app makes must be ridiculous.
I don’t believe you. People use TikTok don’t read books.
You think that is because tiktok is so good... or... bc fb and Instagram are that corrupt?
3:22 that guy calling TikTok "junk food for your brain" on Fox News. Irony is dead.
13:07 The main point: If you're not okay with TikTok collecting your data, then you also shouldn't be okay with Google and Meta collecting your data. A ban makes no sense. Pass a privacy law that stops companies, American and foreign, from collecting so much data on consumers in the first place.
But we all know Facebook is just a front for the US government to spy on you. Google and apple too.
I already don't have a Facebook so I guess it's time for protonmail (already a good idea) and using AskJeeves/Brave? Doesn't sound that bad to me. You're absolutely right.
How about you go and look at all of the permissions that TikTok has compared to other apps it is mind-boggling. I could obviously tell that you have no idea what you’re talking about and have done no research whatsoever.
Also, you physically cannot get away from Google. In fact, they own TH-cam and almost every major platform also every single website uses their index.
You try to sound like your tech savvy, but it’s not really working that well.
That is antisemitic
Why let China compete in our market in the first place? They certainly don't allow any of our apps over there.
Tom Cotton sounds less like the name of a Senator and more like one of the alternate working titles for Jim Crow
ah, the inspiration for the nuremberg laws
😭😭
his name sounds like he should be commentating professional dodgeball on espn 8: the ocho
Sounds like a cartoon Fruit of the Loom ad campaign.
@@fatusopp4739 Was gonna comment the same thing hahahahah
Wow, a classic Xena: Warrior Princess reference! Talk about throwback to the 90s!
I made a screensaver for my sons’ computer as they were both fans. Good memory for them. And me.
I love how John Oliver does not pick sides. He is objective ❤
The singaporean being grilled by that congressman should've retorted with his own questioning, based on appearance: "how long have you served in the russian FSB? Do you hold a russian passport?"
And asked if he was here legally
everyone is guilty until proven otherwise in very simple words a 5 year could understand if he really wanted to
Talk about a flashback. "Are you now or have you ever been?"
Fighting back with their own questioning would be counterproductive. Allow the one doing the questioning to expose their own foolishness.
@@Hawkenwhacker exactly. Make them look bad and silly. Keep saying the right answers.
Can’t wait for him to cover how americans are now moving from tiktok to Rednote out of spite 😂😂
Omg it has been so dang funny!
They will probably ban that too. Mark Zuckerberg is already busy licking Trump’s feet
😂🤡 In the near future, supporters of Donald Trump will demonstrate a cheap trick related to saving the social network TikTok. As part of this stunt, Trump will be presented as the saviour of TikTok, which is likely to lead to a significant increase in his ratings among a certain short-sighted audience. It will be another cheap show." 🤡😂
The Little Red Book will block them. They don't want outsider influence on their people.
So long as they stay on Mao's Red Book and we don't get all the kid's videos on TH-cam, it's all good.....
It'll be funny when the kids want to talk about gay and lesbian rights or democracy and protesting and get censored by the CCP! :D
This was a great breakdown. This show does a great job of making difficult and nuanced topics more accessible. I was waiting for him to talk about how many of the senators especially the few that created this bill have sooooo many stock shares in meta! Also how the current top investors of the app are American businesses, and how the people who want to buy it are part of the ADL out of Israel! There’s a lot to question around data privacy as he explained very well, but this issue goes incredibly deep into the pockets of US senators!
As always, follow the money...
He took over a half hour to explain what a high schooler would in five minutes. Don't let your braincells rub together too much or they might overheat
Tiktok isn't allowed in China. You can't download it, it doesn't work there.
Let's do a thought experiment.
Imagine that the US made a social media app that was banned in the US and it was only for Chinese people to consume.
Imagine that half of chinese adults used it as their main source of news.
Do you think that the Chinese government would be justifiably concerned?
That a foreign government in a hostile country has a direct line to half their population
Yup, he missed out the part where Mitt Romney admitted it was pro Palestinian and he didn't want people saying the "raw footage" of what is actually happening in Gaza to women, children and older people. Implying that they only want you to see the media "specially curated" for you to see. Navarro media does a banging job on this recently
The fact that Temu and Shien are allowed but not tiktok shows that this has nothing to do with security. Temu collects just as much of not more data but it doesn't let users share the corruption in their own government
Temu is trash. Nobody uses that crap seriously
@TheVoidofNothing11 Do you seriously not have a single friend who isn't white? They play that app like a casino. My BiL is getting multiple boxes every single day front his Thai wife.
@@ViridianFlow lol I'm not white
@@TheVoidofNothing11 Then your ignorance is even more bizarre
@@ViridianFlow Okay how abut this one to blow your mind. I'm Asian.
The last time American said there were weapons of mass destruction in a country i won't mention millions of people died for no reason and the country has never recovered
How about the over 300,000 american solders who died from health issues after they got home, directly related to their exposure to dioxin (Agent Orange). Sprayed since 1962 starting with JFK through Ford. All those fellow presidents knew in advance that the defoliant had between 3-5 times the level of the toxic Dioxin. They also NEVER told medical personal, military doctors or medical students signs of exposure, treatment if there are any! "Thank you for your service"??? Really??? Lest we forget!
This should be starred. Right on.
True
22:45 - My favorite tenant of the American Justice System is "No one is above the law, except if you're a Republican whose been participating Child Sex Trafficking, the disruption of the peaceful transfer of power, or your net worth ends with more than 6 zeros. In which case, go straight to Boardwalk and collect $200 if you pass GO."
Oh, Yeah... That is Right, it's just One Person in the Whole Nation that Gets Special Treatment... If you are a Local Picking On an Out of Stater you are Essentially Above the Law! You have No Clue How the Nation Really Works Do You? Same Happens for many Democrats... How about the Whole Epstein List... I'd say the Clintons... But than I'd just be another Victim of them, in their Long List!
That's TENET, not TENANT, of American law.
@whatgoesaroundcomesaround920 lol, I'm glad that's the best correction you have. You knew what I meant and that's all that matters ☺️
😂🤡 In the near future, supporters of Donald Trump will demonstrate a cheap trick related to saving the social network TikTok. As part of this stunt, Trump will be presented as the saviour of TikTok, which is likely to lead to a significant increase in his ratings among a certain short-sighted audience. It will be another cheap show." 🤡😂
And if you are a Mossad with JFK, New York 9/11, Mossad with Epstein-maxwell-cp-services, or a buddy/frequent visitor to the epstein services. No one has been even investigated. Peanut the Squirrel was investigated more than any of the epstein-maxwell-mossad DVD recorded people, all of whom are 100% known by the FBI and the CIA. Yet, nothing has happened, and it is not likely will ever happen. That is zionism and corruption for you.
The “sell it to an American company” part of the demand tells me that it is entirely about money.
Exactly
On the other hand, the refusal to do so tells me it's *not* about money on ByteDance's end.
America will always try their best to keep certain information from getting to the public.
I was talking about the reason for the demand to sell, which was not initiated by ByteDance. But also, if the dictate is that they must sell to an American company, that’s a limitation on potential bidders which could artificially keep the price low. Heck, they’d probably force a sale of $1 to some temporary holding company, which then resells to the highest domestic bidder for an enormous profit that doesn’t leave this country. If ByteDance is interested in money, they’d want to keep the ongoing revenue instead of being forced into selling.
@@neildolan3700 Really? If you were force to sell your thriving company under a short notice, you will never get even half of asset worth. Not to mention the company could worth double in a year. Imagine you force Musk to sell his Tesla share 2020.
The followup to this is gonna be gold
I remember seeing Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in a history clip looking on in disbelief as a Hollywood screenwriter was hammered with the same questions during the McCarthy era.
He has a good point. The jar hasn't been recognized for it's continued practicality and accomplishments.
I'm thinking I need to get myself a jar.
It's crazy that the U.S is so behind on data privacy law, considering PERSONAL PRIVACY IS LITERALLY GUARANTEED IN THE CONSTITUTION. Yes, only against government and not private interest, but it speaks to a moral value this country was founded upon. A value that the government clearly has never cared about. Maybe we should consider these rights more broadly rather than just in binary ways like that.
I hope your valuable comment gets 2K likes.
EXACTLY!!
Personal privacy is an *implied* right in the Constitution, one you arrive at that *must* exist based on the other named rights.
But it's ultimately not black and white, and is in real danger of being curtailed by the Supreme Court.
Unfortunately it's not stated, but implied. And maybe you missed it but Roe v. Wade got overturned and the original ruling was based on the implied right to privacy. So the current SCOTUS isn't even holding that implied right in high regard.
@@SF_Bud Thanks for mentioning the Dobbs decision. The majority opinion from Alito was pretty clear on his opinion on the "right" to privacy. If the conservative court doesn't believe >50 years of abortion rights (under the _Roe_ decision precedent) doesn't count as "deeply rooted" in American history and tradition, then no rights are safe. Alito may as well void out the 14th Amendment because for the first 250ish years of America (colonial and national) slavery was perfectly legal.
And Thomas's concurrence was even worse, bringing into question other rights arising from the whole substantive due process stuff, like gay marriage, contraception, gay relationships, etc. We're all deeply fucked at this point in time.
the problem is...they don't care. they only want what's useful to them at the moment and, sadly, personal privacy doesn't reach that criteria
John Oliver definitely has the GIFT for news and humor, much like JOHN STEWART. 💯🙂
Concern trolling over a single app while the real issue is why the hell our phones are allowed to collect and redistribute our data to a whole host of corporations.
Ban mobile phone which has Tiktok is causing discomfort to the US politicians. That is why Huawei phone is banned bcos it refused to let CIA install a backdoor software to collect user's private data.
25:56 - "We've been behind the rest of the world on this issue for an embarrassingly long time" might as well be the subtitle of this show.
One very important point left out:
Some members of congress and especially lobbyists despise how activists use TikTok, both to get organized and post videos that expose them.
This is so spot on!
Oh damn, that makes a lot of sense!!
Didn't Mitt Romney literally let it slip at one point that Tiktok not suppressing criticism of Israel on their platform contributed toward the ban?
This is actually the whole point. The data protection argument has always been disingenuous because American social media companies collect data in the same way and sell it to China, so China ends up with that data anyway. It’s all about controlling the flow of information and there’s been several leaked conversations and documents to back that up.
I don't think this was excluded so much as it's not relevant. Activists organize on all social media; if anything, TikTok's algorithm makes it marginally more difficult to organize on it due to arbitrary restrictions on language. TikTok just happens to be where young people are these days. Before TikTok, it was Twitter.
My biggest question is did no one even ask why the sale of TikTok to an American company could just be a matter of lobbyists and greed?
2:10 I will always find it disingenuous how TikTok is reduced to "bratty Gen-Z users dancing and making non-content". It's similar to reducing TH-cam to prank videos and challenges.
A summary: tiktok does everything alphabet, microsoft, X or meta do, but the company doesn't share the data with the us government so they don't like it. So instead of doing a European style GDPR they focus on just the app they don't control(or doesn't donate to their campaigns)
That's the whole point! Americans can only be screwed by American themselves, not by the Chinese. This is indeed a national security issue...
So you would rather have chinese overlords? Europe is also working to ban tiktok BTW. Why do you think china doesnt allow such programs within their borders unless they are owned by china? Here is a hint, they understand the power and influence it would give the United States over their people.
American tech companies do not share your data with the government unless they’re subpoenaed.
TikTok has also used the app to track the location and harrass a journalist that published information that they didn’t like.
I wouldn’t be surprised that in the last four years ByteDance has made significant monetary contributions to keep their business afloat but that security hawks can’t find it in themselves to trust it a priori because that ‘feels an awful lot like bribery’ - which is, of course, a significant security concern.
This is skipping over the fact it's going to a foreign government. Tiktok is owned by a nation that isn't on the best terms with us, of course it gets a special condition.
I don't get how this keeps getting missed. It's not that we can't see, it's that China can
Wow. Tom Cotton's questioning of Shou Chew went REALLY deep into McCarthy "Red Scare" territory.
Maybe Tom Cotton is a time traveler from the 1950's?
thats what it reminded me of too
The real question is, why this guy isn't an American citizen, and his wife and kids are.
@@taylorkirkland3529 are people from other countries not allowed to get married to americans now? what are you talking about?
@@taylorkirkland3529so his evil plan was to infiltrate the U.S. by… not having citizenship rights despite wanting his children to have them, in order to spy for a country he has never lived in and which is geopolitically and ideologically opposed to the actual country he was born in. I’m not saying tiktok is great, and that guy probably sucks (he’s a tech executive), but there’s just nothing to suggest he had any malicious intent related to any foreign country.
@@taylorkirkland3529 Because he lives in Singapore and he can come to the US on business visas as he normally does. What a silly question. Its 100% legal to marry outside your country for many countries. Look into IMBRA or the International Marriage Brokerage Regulations Act. The US is a a part of it. Even China is.
It isn't about cat videos & dances. TikTok is a lifeline for marginalized people, providing mental health support, financial support in disasters, and community for isolated individuals. It has saved lives and provided financial resources. Lawyers, doctors, and scientists educate and help people sift through misinformation.
At the end of the day, at what price to your privacy?
Sarcasm or not. It's impossible to know for sure.
So obvious you are not disabled. @@berzerius
What do you mean?@@thisperson5294
@@PrinceCharmingsMom2930we are both here on TH-cam. Our information is already out there. I would rather the Chinese have my data than the incoming administration.
We should break up FB and IG into seperate companies again as well.
and whatsapp and everything else. sadly that wont happen because your market watchdogs are toothless and your entire government is corrupt to the bone.
still, banning chinese malware is a good move.
Agreed! Look what Elon just did with Twitter.
He totally put his thumb on the scale for Trump and even sent out FAKE texts pretending to be from the Kamala campaign. NO consequences!
They have WAAAAAAY too much power!
that's not a bad idea, but tiktok is evil and does need to go.
@007kingifrit Prove it, like JO just did that you're full of it ...
Don't just make claims using "evil" without thinking it through. Face it, YOU don't even believe you! 😉
@@hadara69 tiktok is a threat to our national security, owned by a communist entity engaged in genocide and seeking to expand their borders. they are our enemy.
grow up child, a comedian is not a source of news.
US logic: “how dare TikTok spy on you, only we are allowed to do that”.
Yeah it's a bit ironic how here in the EU we have a somewhat similar problem after they elected the owner of Twitter to be the president or something.
What if you work for the DoD and have a security clearance, or you’re a politician, and you’re using TikTok to have an affair, and now China knows they can leverage that information to get you to send them classified documents? Just seems like there are some dangers there with an adversarial nation having access to our data and online habits that could be used to compromise some folks.
How about China logic of banning all american apps?
I mean governments can spy on their citizens within their own borders unless there's a specific privacy law that prevents that. Likewise, China spies on their own citizens and has an oversize control on their private lives. Do I like that innocent people are suffering? No, but that's not my country. Chinese politicians love to use Westerner media to spread their false narrative while at the same time banning that very Western media in China.
This isn't a whataboutism issue. Spying on people is bad everywhere and maybe we should vote for people who focuses on privacy policies within our country.
Two things can be bad at the same time. Hope this helps.
Politicians: Foreign civilian surveillance? We can't have that! We must keep our civilian surveillance domestic! 😡
"We have surveillance corporate state at home."
we should trust our own government is less of a threat than china
USA surveillance is world wide they know all the crucial information that they get from it from every country. They are now reacting when china is doing it to them. Why because they know the kind of info that can be collected and they do collect domestically and internationally.
They are scared because they know how damming it can be, why? Because it's what they do to everyone eles and throwing a hissy fit when it's not only them who can do it
I thought a lot of the ban has to do with how young people have been able to organise and mobilise thanks to the app.
See, that's the quiet part none of the politicians want to say out loud, and the show is focusing on the arguments politicans are publicly using because those are the most wide spread. The other quiet part is that a lot of the politicians supporting a TikTok ban own stock in Meta and will directly profit if people go from TikTok to Instagram. And the other other quiet part is that Trump is now trying to "save" TikTok to get more support from Gen Z (Despite instigating talks of a ban in the first place [Also the show did cover that part but I don't see anyone in the comments talking about it]).
'Thick Tok' is for influencing the minds of millions of morons! China at any moment, can at the press of a button can alter the user content to cause outrage with misinformation, triggering unrest in our democracy.
The proof it happens is Elon Musk has already been altering the feed of X -Twitter users with far right misinformation. And thicko people believe it as it goes viral. And Meta is about to do the same. What's worrying is these guys all want an oligarchy. And Trump is there puppet to do it. Notice how they all suddenly kissed his as*
I like John Oliver’s segments because he follows concise analysis with next course of action, all done with a sense of humor.
John Oliver got his BA at Christ's College Cambridge. Can you tell??? :)
if you're coming here for analysis you are not an informed person
this guy is bought, listen to the video it’s full of propaganda I’m almost sure he’s working for the chinese government, maybe some chinese company owns his handlers
@@007kingifrit people get information from many sources these days. never said this is the only source where I stay informed on this topic...
@@derekGibsoundSG viewing jon oliver and finding him informative at all is a poor reflection on you. i come here to see what bad people think. nothing more.
if your news has a laugh track, it is trying to stop you from thinking.
I don't really think it's more nuanced than most people think. Congress is banning tiktok for doing the exact same things all other social media companies do. The only difference is who owns the company, or more realistically because American social media companies have been lobbying for over a decade. And since it's not blanket protection for all American's data from all social media companies all tiktok has to do is buy the data from american companies for pennies. It's a bad law written by people who don't understand the technology they're legislating.
They want to ban it for only one reason . 🧃 Have no control over it .
They're doing it cuz Meta paid them
@sanmer85 the entire Jewish lobby . Not just meta
@@M3ganwillslayIs the Jewish lobby currently in the room with us?
@@_jpgaipac? Nah they are busy buying the new incoming house members
Love you work John. Probably the most nuanced take on the TikTok ban I've seen so far.
Left out the reason it's getting shut down completely but other than that, it wasn't bad.
well who's here after the ban :(
i'm glad LWT points out that our own US companies pose the very same threats to our privacy, because that really really... really needs to be addressed.
Not the same threat. Tiktok hacks American citizens phones for the Chinese government. Google and Facebook hack your phone for the American government. False equivalency.
As bad as the US government is. China is much worse.
Always great work Mr John Oliver. Thank you, and of course your support crew too.
Ban all corporations from stealing our info under threat of prison for management, leaders & major shareholders.
+1!
It isn't theft. You agree to their user agreements and terms and conditions
But what about the 1st Amendment?
@@coltonblake13dumb argument
@@franjkav No it ain't. It's in the agreement. It's buried in 100 pages of legal nonsense but it's there. All they gotta do is show your consent and say "Not our fault you didn't read it."
Metaphorical guns Banned, actual guns are not banned… I’m already missing TikTok. 😢
Thank you for continually speaking truth to power
You mean John Oliver?
He is talking to you and me...
...fyi, we are not Power.
And yet, Mr Oliver said zero words of the real reason: Allowing Pro-Palestinian content and facts. That is NOT allowed in the USofA type of "no corruption, much freedom"-mossad style faked dreamland.
I think we all collectively realized the potential risks of having any personal information on computers connected to the internet to begin with, shrugged, and embarked on a technological odyssey together fully knowing it probably doesn't end well.
There was an element of “I’m nobody, why would they bother with my data?” also.
How hasn't it ended well? Internet connectivity is one of humanity's greatest achievements. Also the "I'm nobody" argument still stands up remarkably well for all intents and purposes.
Holding hands and skipping along 🤣
@@robgriffin4801it hasn’t ended badly yet. I love the internet and I think it’s absolutely amazing and has done great things for humanity. But it’s not over. It hasn’t ended, and we don’t know how things might change. For better or for worse
You know it's funny when TikTok is getting banned for data broking, while Meta and Google are giggling heartily.
It’s happening because they lobbied for it
And you TALK about buying something and the next thing you know there are 15 ads on the damn Microsoft EDGE and Facebook for it.
At least they're American. We don't want to help China hasten our inevitable collapse
It's getting banned for being owned by a company that has to put the interests of an adversarial foreign government over its own business.
If they spin it out or sell it it's not banned
The fact that there's no public evidence that bytedance has acted on any directions from the Chinese government doesn't mean anything. There's no way we could know without deep espionage and of course we wouldn't want to reveal the intelligence methods we discovered any evidence through
The point is that under the current regime the Chinese government has the right and ability to freely manipulate tiktok with no public visibility and that in and of itself is a huge problem. Whether they haven't done it already or we just don't have evidence that can be made public or they haven't done it yet, the fact remains that they can do it whenever they want and it's a huge threat
Yes we should have blanket privacy and algorithmic manipulation regulations that apply to all American companies too. Also we shouldn't have major media companies dominating in America that are subject to the control of hostile foreign governments. All bytedance needs to do is sell off or spin out tiktok to a company not under the thumb of the CCP and everyone can keep using it. Why is that off the table for them?
The wordplay in this one was more exceptional than usual!
The "dances to danger" bit is especially funny because there is a netflix documentary called "dancing for the devil" about a cult of tiktok dancers.
And now we're giving our data directly to China through REDnote 😂😂
Only for them to start banning LGBTQ content (that's illegal in China)
don't worry about it you had been giving data to Facebook, TH-cam, Instagram etc. for decades
Yeah don't believe everything you hear
@GreenC The difference is that those are US companies, the issue is that China having easy access to US citizens information and spreading any sort of political or foreign propaganda is a legitimate concern. Stop trying to cope and justify garbage like TikTok.
@@ianp5367 yes, as U.S companies never do no wrongs and never access your information and spreading any sort of political or foreign propaganda on any other platforms before, right?
That clip made Senator Tom Cotton sound like a bargain basement Senator Joe McCarthy 😂😂😂
It would be really funny if someone "accidentally" called him Senator McCarthy during questioning
McCarthy rightfully would be insulted by that comparison...and McCarthy in his own right was a unequivocal horse's ass.
I have never in my life heard John Oliver do an American teenage girl accent till now. I was not ready for that! 👌
I feel called out by the “Xena: Warrior Princess” reference. That deserved a bigger laugh.
There weren't enough lesbians and bisexual women in the audience to provide that bigger laugh. Xena was an entire generation's sexual awakening.
As an Asian American (Indian-Asian, I have already sadly experienced some adverse experiences basically every week ever since Trump got elected), I want to comment on the male named "Cotton" (its like Mike Judge himself wrote this part) hassling TikTok's CEO. This is the precise experience I have when I meet people who questioned or attempted to suggest I'm suspect or don't belong somewhere or am a criminal for the crime of being a nonwhite, visibly brown woman. I can empathize a lot with Tik Tok's CEO, look at the look of fear/concern in his eyes, its the feeling and sense of confusion/fear that I've experienced myself. Even the White Cotton would-be-plantation-owner is doubling down in that way you can TELL every "polite" racist acts, thinking they'll manage to interrogate you into a corner where they'll "get you" after breaking you down emotionally through incessantly questioning and gaslighting you on your own nationality/identity.
Screw those feeds
I like how nobody has noticed the description called all the viewers bisexual yet.
they're right.. i am 😂
Hmm… 🤔
Absolutely am. Too bad it took 20 years instead of a few rounds of tiktoks but hey, we're here, I guess.
Didnt notice it. You probably did because youre gay.
Ha! I just saw that thanks
Another important part od the puzzle is that multiple senators have 100s of thousands worth in meta stocks.
Between janurary 2024 (when the bill got introduced) and now they have been trading meta, x and google stocks non stop.
A big portion of the us senate and espasically vocal supporters of the tiktok ban will directly financially gain from this.
John pointing out how shameless TikTok users are is so funny bc of how true it is. There are no secrets, no guilt, no shame on that app. A truly lawless land 😂
It is so weird seeing this as someone who was in their late teens when Facebook started getting popular. Kids growing up now are in such a public square all the time, I wouldn't have been able to handle the way things are now tbh.
Addiction to time killer😢
I'm not quite sure about that. 99.9% of TT users are afraid of being cringe, which is shame adjacent. The other .1% don't know what cringe is.
If you see the things people admit to in public, the obvious conclusion is, theyre hiding things that are much worse.
This was such a comprehensive and entertaining video, thanks John and team!
Speaking as an american it feels really odd that American social media companies have been collecting data from people around the world for decades now but as soon as a company from another country does it, it becomes ominous.
yea none of these arguments hold water. all social media companies are the same and nothing is going to change because its good for business. The only good reason i saw for banning tik tok was just economic reciprocity. It wasn't mentioned here. We allow a chinese company to have free reign in america when they don't allow any of our tech companies to do business there. But its too late now because it wasn't dealt with when tik tok first arrived. Now theyre trying to walk it back after its taken significant market share from our companies and under a national security threat we have no details of.
Americans in a nutshell
So, USA is China? Mhkaaaay
I think the difference is that if the right law passes in America then those companies will need to delete the data and currently the government can't look at any of it.
On the other hand with the current laws in China the government can already view/use/store the data.
you're not getting the point. Most companies (esp american) collect the data to help with personalized ad purposes so 1000s of companies can more efficiently spend ad dollars. China has the potential to do much worse and put the thumb on the scale of our information distribution. Also, china blocks nearly ALL US internet tech companies in there "great firewall". There should be reciprocal approaches
0:39 that chris clemmons!! he's amazing?
Security my ass. More like the U.S. is pissed it can’t replicate the TikTok algorithm
It's pretty much this. Utube and meta are trying to capture that same audience and failing because the product isn't as good
More that they don't want to. Google's algorithm for searches was the best in the world. Then they discovered how much money there was, not in predicting and giving people what they want, but rather directing them to whatever their partners are paying for.
I see two futures for TikTok:
1. The same shitification as every other platform. (If the company's goal is money.)
2. It remains the greatest algorithm of all time forever. (If the goal is spying on people and they don't care about Tik Tok itself being a loss leader.)
Funny, the Chinese spying on us is actually the PREFERABLE option.
What is there to replicate, stupidity?
If we're banning TikTok for privacy reasons, does that mean we're banning Google, Meta, and Amazon too?
Everyone: ...
No, because the government likes the collecting of data. And it has control over those companies. The problem with Tik tok is, it doesn't control it.
@@davescott7680 no those companies are all independent and for profit lol
well tiktok isnt american so
If TikTok gets banned in America, and Americans still want to use it, all they need is a VPN to access it from a different nation.
Fine for casual users, but my 100% of my income is from American Tiktok users
That's not how it works. It is banned in India and you can't access it on VPN coz it's illegal for VPN providers.
This comment is sponsored by NordVPN! More about them after the sketch!
What if they remove it from the app store?
@@consciousness3466 Before app stores, we could download a program and install it on the pc or phone. Has that capability secretly removed or do people forget how to do that?
We are one day away. Time is an amazing thing. I remember watching this episode live, and January 19th, 2025, seemed like a long time to wait.
lol 😂😂😂😂 shortest ban EVER
this is a pretty standard suit, white shirt with a deep navy jacket and darker blue tie. The color of the suit with the background is a nice contrast with the tiktok thumb nail through the episode. It’s not the most expressive suit, but it did its job. 5/10
I have no idea what is going on with that comment but I wanna join in. I agree that if the suit was a lighter blue it may have pulled focus from the thumbnail. A dark suit, like black shade, may have not really shown up or might make john look like an undertaker. I will add that I do believe John Oliver would be the kind of guy who, when he gets a 5/10 rating for a suit he owns would be totally fine. Not for him the reverse searching of IP addresses, probably. Also I have to give the content of this show a 10/10 . Although unfortunately the grading system means you have to DIVIDE that score by his previous suit score... damn 😂
@ just to clarify, I’ve given several of his other suits way higher rating in the past, often suits in earlier seasons have some of my favorite combos. I really miss the bright ties and striped shirts that we used to enjoy every week in comparison to now when we only see them every once in a while. I agree this is a 10/10 show and the content isn’t reflected by the suit choices, but I feel like a bit of joy might be added to the lovely depressing content that we are use to having on this show.
@ What do you think about the combo "suit on the top of the hoodie" or "hoodie on the top of a suit" like the Australian late nigh host Rove McManus used to sport round November of 2008? Can it be worked out in such a way it's classy, and exquisitely elegant for fans of both the formal and informal in one edgy yet classy textile composition out there?
I agree with your logic and rating here. This is a firm 5.0/10.0 on the suit scale. Personally, I’d like to see a bit more bravery from John-perhaps the occasional burgundy jacket, with a classic light grey shirt or even a turquoise shirt (+1.0 for boldness); perhaps a stylish olive jacket, for Earth Day, and a pink tuxedo on valentine’s! C’mon, John, push the limits! The key to a long and happy marriage is making an effort to keep things interesting, John. Try on some new outfits for us, damnit!
john suits a 5/10 suit. He's not a snappy dressing 'stylish' kind of guy. He's not 'cool', or 'expressive'. He's sad and english. This is not meant to be all snarky, read the air quotes the way john would and I hope you'll get the tone and idea. Love rating his suits ep by ep regardless though
Its obvious the TikTok ban is not about China or data collecting. If it was, this law would apply to all social media and tech giants.
Meanwhile Trump and Company are threatening to leave NATO because some European countries are putting restrictions on Twitter. Talk about hypocrisy at its finest.
You're wrong. It is about data Chinese collection and spying. The U.S. government isn't worried about domestic companies as much because U.S. companies aren't trying to destroy the U.S. They just want to be rich. China is though. U.S. companies want your data for profit, China wants your data to weaken and control the U.S.
Ahhh critical thinking!
@@DreamGardener7right? Isn’t that an anomaly 😂
how is not about china? lol
Tom Cotton does an excellent reprisal of Joe McCarthy's style of questioning.
Of course when US companies collect data about global users, that's completely fine.