What's the Deal with TikTok? (with Asha Rangappa)
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Hey folks, Eli Honig here. As you may know, we recently launched a second weekly episode of the Cafe Insider podcast, where I'll be joined by Cafe contributors and other guests to tackle one major legal or policy issue in about 30 minutes. This week, I'm joined by Asha Rangappa to discuss the many legal battles surrounding the social media app TikTok. If you're a member of Cafe Insider, head on over to the Insider feed to listen to our full conversation.

Listeners of the council remain here for an excerpt from our discussion. To become a member of Cafe Insider and to get access to two new episodes each week, head on over to cafe.com slash insider pod. You can try the membership for just $1 for one month. That's cafe.com slash insider pod. Now, on to the show.

I've seen in the research that over 150 million Americans are on TikTok. I mean, that's nearly half the country. It's 40% or so of the country. I can't imagine that there's anything that's more influential. But the thing that I think is confounding for me and I think for a lot of people is why is this app where it's basically kids doing lip syncs and dances, right, for the most part? Maybe I'm oversimplifying what's actually on there.

Why is this seen as such a threat by our federal government? So I think that the main reason is that the parent company of TikTok, ByteDance, is under China's influence, if not control, which means that all of the data that TikTok gathers is likely going into the hands of the Chinese government. Now,

TikTok, as I mentioned before, has a very powerful algorithm that can tailor content. And this is partly because unlike other apps, which gathers content based on your activity on the app itself, you know, what you're liking, what you're watching, what you're

TikTok actually is able to gather, I don't know exactly how it does this, but it's able to gather information about you beyond your use of the app itself. When you agree to use the app, you're giving it permission to gather all kinds of information about other things that you're doing on the device. And so they're able to get a much greater picture. And this information flows into the hands of China, a

and the government believes. And that is what creates some major national security implications. So let me play again the role of the sort of distant outsider. Why do we care if China knows that this person likes to watch TV

Katy Perry videos. This person likes videos of the Yankees winning the World Series in the 90s. You know, it seems fairly innocuous. And even, I guess, to take it further, while this person watches pro-Kamala Harris videos or this person likes pro-Donald Trump videos, how is this a security threat? Great question. And I think it's a fair one for people to ask.

They might say, hey, I don't really care. I'm not doing anything crazy on the app and everybody's getting my data anyway. So I think that there's three big security risks that are associated with specifically a hostile foreign adversary getting this data. So the first is a counterintelligence risk. At an individual level, you're providing this data to checkpoints.

to China, and it may not seem like such a big deal. We've probably heard of big data, which means that when you can aggregate all of this information, you can start to get a picture that allows you to see at a granular level outliers, for example, people who are outside of the norm. And that can

be incredibly valuable for China, whether they are looking at behavior of employees in certain sectors that might be of intelligence interest to them for recruitment, for example. They might be able to cross-reference this kind of data with other things that they've stolen. For example, they've stolen...

Millions of security files from the Office of Personnel Management, from people who have gotten security clearances from the U.S. government. You know, they're able to perhaps identify our intelligence officers, find out where they're traveling to. Data at that scale and scope can be very powerful in terms of giving our adversaries, you know, a picture of

of us as a country that we might not want them to have. At a granular level, at kind of an individual level, your particular preferences can, of course, allow a foreign adversary to micro-target you with information, narratives that they want you to believe. You know, we've all heard about echo chambers, but this allows them to feed particular narratives, maybe nudge you in certain directions on issues,

even in elections. And that's, of course, a big concern for us. And that brings to mind for me, and I'm sure for you as well, some of the Russian malign influence that was noted in the Mueller report, right? The troll farms, and they would try to manipulate divisions in the electorate and put out propaganda, right? I mean, it's similar. It sounds similar to me. It is similar. And I think that the difference here is that

If you remember back in the Mueller report, Russia was itself a consumer of Facebook. In other words, it was purchasing ads. It was basically using these features and exploiting them to its benefit. As an American-owned company, Facebook ultimately, when this investigation happened, had to turn over information. This is how we know all of this stuff.

However, it would be very different if Russia was actually controlling Facebook. I mean, that's a whole other issue. And then you get into a problem where if you're trying to even investigate it, you may run up against roadblocks because, you know, they're not necessarily going to turn over that information and maybe they don't even necessarily have to. I wouldn't count on it. But then and then there's like the last one, which I suspect is.

might be the biggest one, and I think might be actually driving this ban, which is TikTok as a vehicle, maybe a Trojan horse of sorts, to actually push malware onto your devices. So viruses and ransomware, that kind of thing? Viruses, malware that can then transform your devices into basically...

sleeper devices to be used as a botnet to target other things. So, for example, the FBI has recently disrupted two major Chinese botnets that actually conscripted

private home routers, other personal devices in people's homes to target critical infrastructure, the energy sector. Basically, a botnet is what I think of as sort of like a computer army that they can control at a central level. And if they want to activate it, then they can use it to disrupt some of these major sectors. I mean, that's a big problem. That's actually like a

a weapon that they would have in their hands. I think the Trojan horse analogy that you used is perfect, right? They basically use TikTok as a way to get in. And once they're in, they sort of run wild beyond what I think people realize. I mean, your revelation that they can track you beyond what you do on TikTok, I think is alarming. And it sounds like they can even potentially reach beyond whatever specific device and sort of

creep through your own networks. And I guess the concern isn't so much with everyday folks, but what if they do the job you used to do in the FBI working for a counterintel? Then they're on your devices in your home. I see why that could be definitely an issue.

Thanks for listening. To listen to the full analysis and never miss future episodes of Cafe Insider, become a member by heading to cafe.com slash insider pod. That's cafe.com slash insider pod. Thank you for supporting our work. Support for the show comes from AT&T.

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