Back last February 15th, I did an episode called 5G Flat Coke.
And in that episode, I talked about the
conspiracy theory behind the TikTok algorithm.
The conspiracy theory behind the TikTok algorithm was that it serves up
different content to different regions.
So in China, the algorithm serves up science and technology to make Chinese
kids think that’s cool,
but they’ll pursue those things, it’ll be popular, and then make Chinese
culture like sort of raise it up.
The alternative to that was in America, it serves Booty shaken and dumb
stuff to nullify any positive effects and bring down Western culture.
Now that actually was before I realized that the TikTok app is not available
on mainland China.
So I didn’t actually know that when I was actually doing that thing.
So we’re talking about TikTok and
congressional hearings, which is peak content.
Actually right now TikTok congressional hearing problem, I’m probably a week
late for that.
You got to be like on it and I’m not because I actually want to see all the
stuff and then talk about it.
So the conspiracy theory that it’s serving different content in China and
America can’t be true because the app itself is not available in China.
Therefore, that element cannot be true.
My theory was that different regions have different likes and stuff, so the
algorithm is altered for each region, which makes sense just from a business
standpoint.
And a lot of the things I talked about in that episode of Seeming B was that
a lot of conspiracy theories can either be explained by economics or the
impossibility of having that many people just keep their mouth shut.
That’s actually the other issue that comes up.
So before we get into it, TikTok itself.
So the TikTok ban, this congressional hearings about like, is the apps
buying on people trying to ban it from America essentially is what they were
talking about.
Why is this come about and what do I think about it?
Well, it’s come about primarily again because of economics.
The thing they’re not saying is TikTok is taking all the ad revenue away
from other companies like Google and Facebook
and all these other sort of competitors.
It is just undermined them significantly.
And no one’s actually going to come
out and say that part, this is about money.
Four years ago, there was a congressional hearing about Google.
What was the problem with Google?
Google was making all the money.
So they talk about national security and stuff.
Realistically speaking, I don’t think any of that’s true.
They’re talking about this company is taking too much of the market share.
This company is making too much money. We need to sort of claw some of that
money back to make sure it stays in American hands.
That is really all this congressional hearing is about.
So if your company is too successful and it’s not American, I think that
might be the primary issue.
Does TikTok the app spy on you?
Yes, but so does every other app that exists.
So if you have Facebook, Facebook tracks you, if you use Google, Google
tracks you, if you use TikTok, TikTok tracks you,
there is no situation where a social media based company or a company that’s
relying on the revenue via information is not trying to track you as much as
humanly possible.
So in the clips I’m going to play, they talk about how you know they they it
‘s all sort of user based stuff.
They are trying to talk around the issue that yes, we’re trying to get as
much information in these humanly possible without actually letting on to
people how much information we have collected.
That’s sort of the issue. So opting out is always one of the first issues.
Like when you’re given a new service, usually you’re automatically opted
into certain tracking systems.
And then you have to opt out, which makes it that much harder because people
don’t read those things.
They just click yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, move on.
I want to play with my new app.
Usually agreeing to have everything on your phone tracked.
And that’s not a TikTok thing.
That is a computer company thing.
Does it spy?
Does it?
Can it be used by the Chinese to spy on people?
I don’t know.
I mean, honestly, it could.
I know that your microphone can be turned on remotely, incredibly easily by
almost anyone.
I know pretty much every government has a legal system to make that happen.
Like basically in America, I think you just get a warrant and then if they
can get the right warrant at the right time, they can turn on your mic.
They can turn on your camera.
They can see all this stuff.
You see it in movies all the time, like
they start listening in on conversations.
That’s not actually a hard thing to do.
I couldn’t do it.
I’m not that technologically adept.
But I know that the people who do know these things, they know how to do it.
Should TikTok be banned?
Is an interesting question because I
think if you have a government issue phone,
I don’t believe there should be any social media apps.
I actually think if you have a government issue phone that you shouldn’t be
allowed to put any app on it that isn’t already put on by the government,
essentially, you as a user shouldn’t be allowed to use those phones.
You shouldn’t be allowed to alter those phones.
That to me would be the most basic level of security.
I read an article about a week ago and was talking about how the Pentagon is
struggling because people in the Pentagon are so horny,
they keep putting Tinder on their government issued phones.
Is Tinder tracking you?
Absolutely.
It’s got to use your location to be able to
tell you where the other horny people are.
So that’s sort of the first problem is
users keep putting stuff on their phone.
I don’t think it matters if it’s TikTok
or Tinder or Facebook or anything else.
Every single one of those apps tracks you in some way.
Every one of those apps could be exploited in some way.
God damn it.
There he is for you.
There he is just looking mighty in the background.
So I should actually change my shift so that I work in the evening more and
then stream in the morning because everyone just dropped in real quick.
It says I only have one viewer but like three or four people have already
dropped in and out.
Dave looks like he’s trying to think of what to do next.
Well, dude.
I got to do the podcast.
I actually believe if you work for the government you probably shouldn’t be
bringing your personal phone with you into government buildings.
But that’s a bit extreme on my side.
I know you do probably need to have stuff for like personal emergencies and
things like that and contact information.
So that’s all very important for businesses.
And look at that.
That peak I just hit for businesses.
For businesses, I think again, if a company
says don’t have TikTok on your phone.
If it’s a company issued phone, it’s their phone not yours.
I think that’s a fair agreement to make.
Companies saying that you can’t bring your personal phone
into the building or whatever.
Again, I think that’s kind of their prerogative.
You as a company or you as an employee could agree and or disagree
with the actual policy.
That’s to be worked out between individuals and the company.
But I can understand a company taking that stance.
Like say we have some R&D or something.
We don’t want phones that are going to be tracked.
It could be put on or any sort of security in that room in that building.
I think that’s a fair thing for them to make.
Now should TikTok be banned nationally in America?
I think the core issue there is America
has based all of its ideas and policies
on the idea or the concept of personal freedom.
So turning around and saying that you cannot use this app
because the government doesn’t like this app is counterintuitive
to what a lot of these government officials say America stands for.
So personal freedoms dictate that if I want to use a Chinese-made phone
tracking system, oh my god, look at this,
what I have right here, it’s my phone.
It’s actually a Huawei.
China is probably listening right now.
So once they give me that boost and actually get me the audience in China,
that one billion people will be fine, I’ll be making tons of money.
But the premise is that if this is what I want to do as an American citizen,
then I should be allowed to do it.
That is personal freedom.
If I want to carry an AK-47 with a smartphone
tied to the end that has TikTok on it,
should be allowed to do it.
That is the premise.
Jade has just put that law in the US is actually nightmare fuel.
It could restrict so many freedoms.
I mean, the irony is the clips I’m about to play as examples for how bad
these congressional
hearings are is that it’s mostly Republicans
who talk about freedom the most ,
but then spend all their time trying to restrict others’ freedoms.
I think we all know that’s true as an irony.
We’ve all watched a daily show and all these other shows.
But why am I focusing on this?
And it’s primarily because in Japan, about four years ago,
it had the Minister for Cybersecurity.
And then he was put into place and then it came out in the news that the
Minister for Cybersecurity didn’t know how to use a smartphone.
Not that he wasn’t good at it, did not know how to use it.
Basically, I don’t know if he didn’t know
how to use like the fingerprint scanner,
didn’t know how to use a touch panel, something like that.
Basically, he could not use his smartphone. And when this came to light,
everyone’s like, well, how can you be in charge of cybersecurity?
If you don’t know anything about technology,
he said, I only have to make decisions.
So if I want someone to use the phone, I tell them to use the phone.
So essentially saying, I’m so important.
I don’t need to know stuff to be able to govern effectively.
But the problem is he’s supposed to be in charge and governing technology
and making rules about technology, but how can you make rules about
something you don’t understand?
So I went back and I watched the TikTok hearing, not the whole thing.
It’s like five hours long.
But the highlights showed up really quickly.
I went back and thought, like, there’s other congressional hearings with
similar things have happened.
So I went back four years ago and watched the Google technology hearing.
And I wanted to see if there was sort of
any overlap or similarities between the two.
So let’s get to that because that’s
really the entertainment we have for today.
So we have Mr. Jordan, I believe he’s a Republican.
And this is back four years ago when they
do, they’re talking to what’s his name?
Chai. Yeah.
They’re talking to Sundar Pichai, who is the CEO of Google at the time.
I don’t know if he is now or not.
But they’re basically trying to find out like what Google does, how the
algorithm works.
Basically, they’re very angry that when you search for things about Trump,
all this negativity comes up.
So the premise of this isn’t about freedom.
It isn’t really about doing things the right way.
This is primarily about the fact that
every time we search stuff about Trump ,
a whole bunch of negativity comes up.
And why have you not fixed that for us already and made it so that Trump
only looks good?
Iliana Marillo is Google’s head of multicultural marketing.
Does Ms. Marillo do good work?
I’m not directly familiar with her work, but she’s an employee of Google and
, you know, we are proud of her employees.
Your head of multicultural marketing said
you were pushing to get out the Latino vote,
paying for ride to the polls for the Latino vote only in key states.
And you’re saying that’s not accurate?
Yes, that’s right. We haven’t found any evidence to substantiate any.
So she just made it.
Okay, so that’s the first thing.
Is this is you swear an oath when you join one of these congressional
hearings that you’re
going to tell the truth, the whole truth, all that stuff. But if you lie
under oath, that’s perjury. So he’s
going to be committing a crime if he lies.
And this is the CEO of Google. He’s not
a dumb man. He knows what he’s doing .
He knows how this works. He knows if he lies and he gets caught, he actually
could get in trouble.
Now, I think the reality is congressional hearings. I have never heard of
anyone getting arrested
as immediately as they walk out of the door. But you have our friend, Mr.
Jordan, at the speaker,
he said, is this true? Now, Mr. Pichai has just said, no, that’s no true.
They haven’t found any evidence to substantiate that she made it up.
Well, so he was interrupted.
Google looked into this and they did not find any evidence that what the
congressman is saying is actually true.
I did up out of thin air the day after the election, wrote this email to
your top executives, and it’s not true.
Congressman, I’m happy to follow up, but I think employees today do their
own activities.
No, what’s the follow up? I want the
real answers right here in this committee.
He’s actually laughing at him like he’s caught him. But what is actually
happening is Mr. Pichai
set up a pretty interesting dichotomy. He’s like, we looked into this, we
didn’t find it.
Mr. Jordan did not accept that as an answer, just might the fact again if he
could prove it was
perjury. But Mr. Pichai has also gone and said, look, these are people and
they do stuff outside of
Google. So maybe they did something outside
of Google that we have no control over.
Again, that sort of takes you back to the personal freedom thing. What they
do at the company,
what they do outside the company are necessarily the same thing. This isn’t
the dumbest thing, but the guy
has, again, they’ve been fed information. And the guy is just Mr. Pichai has
just come out and said,
that’s not true. There’s really nothing you can do to follow that up with.
As I said earlier, we have looked into it, we didn’t find it.
Did you push to get out the key vote? And I would say the two most
populous states for Latinos would be California and Texas. Did you push to
get out the Latino vote and pay for people
to go to the polls in California and Texas?
We as a company didn’t have any effort to push out votes for any particular
demographic.
Basically, he says no. I mean, and of course, Google isn’t going to go and
push the vote on one side
of the other primarily because that would be a massive problem for them if
they actually got caught
doing it. He knows this, so they’re not actually going to do it. We against
our principles.
We participate in the civic process in a non-partisan way, and we think it’s
really important. We do it that way.
I have an iPhone. And if I move from here and go over there and sit with my
Democrat friends,
which will make them real nervous, this guy is already weird. This guy has
just said, I have an iPhone.
And he has failed to realize that iPhone
and Google are not the same companies.
And this is again sort of an example of my point. We have people in charge
who don’t understand the
fundamental nature of different things. So he thinks Google and the Internet
and phones and all of
this is just one thing. He doesn’t understand that it is different. Now, to
me, the sincerity with what
Mr. Pichet responds to this thing. He says, just Google track my movement.
Now, it’s an iPhone.
So iPhone, Apple absolutely is tracking your movements. It probably has a
map app on it in GPS and stuff,
so it is 100% tracking your phone. He’s also inadvertently held up a picture
of his granddaughter
on the phone. It’s his background wallpaper. Unless like, that’s like a
default one that he just
doesn’t know that kid. When he’s saying, if I move from here over there,
will Google track me? Now,
the answer is Apple, probably the answer is yes. Maybe not over 10 feet or
100 feet, but it’s going to
certainly know you’re in this building. It’s going to know the other phones
that are in that building
if their iPhone’s for sure. But since it’s not a Google product, Google
technically has nothing to
do with that phone. Does Google track my movement? Does Google through this
phone know that I have moved
here and moved over to the left? It’s either yes or no. So the answer in
this case is no. I mean,
if we’re being really honest, the answer in that case is no. Mr. Pichai is
actually going to respond
to this more appropriately by saying like, there is the possibility that you
had, let’s say, Google maps
on your phone and Google maps attract you because you would have let it. But
he can’t get that far
because the guy just starts demanding yes or no answers. When these are not
yes or no answers,
and if he is going to do yes or no answers, the answer is no. It’s not
because it’s an iPhone.
Not by default. There may be a Google service which you’ve opted into use.
So Google knows that I
am moving over there. It’s not. See, and he keeps saying like this is like
not a trick question, but
it’s because he doesn’t understand the question or the answer. It’s not a
trick question. No, and he’s
not trying to give you a trick answer. He’s trying to actually explain to
you if you put a Google
service on your iPhone and you allow that Google service to track your
movements, then yes, Google
will track your movements. But right now what you’re saying, the answer is
no. Not a trick question.
You know, you make a hundred million dollars a year. You ought to be able to
answer that question.
Does Google know through this? This
man’s hand is now shaking because he’s so
getting so angry that he’s not getting what he wants is the answer is to be
yes. That’s what he wants.
But he’s not getting the answer he wants because he’s actually doesn’t
understand the question he’s asking.
Phone, that I am moving over there and sit next to Mr. Johnson, which would
make him real nervous.
Why would sitting next to your coworker make them nervous? This is a whole
different thing.
He’s making it sound like he’s either going to intimidate that guy or that
guy thinks he’s really creepy.
I don’t understand why him moving across the room to one of his coworkers
would make his
coworker so nervous because Mr. Poe is not that intimidating to me. He’s a
he’s a pudgy older man.
He’s got a little less hair than me, but you know, we’re on the same path
than that one.
But I would not find him intimidating in any way. I don’t understand why he
‘s making his
coworker so nervous unless it’s the way he behaves like a fucking psycho. It
‘s his question.
It’s yes or no. I wouldn’t be able to answer it. I’m looking at it. I can’t
say yes or no.
He’s saying I can’t say yes or no without looking at your phone because I
have to know what
services are on your phone. But this guy doesn’t understand that the apps
and the phone are actually
different things. He thinks it’s just
one thing. Without knowing more details.
So anticipating what took place in 2016 happening again and this is
specifically regarding
what Russia did to foment racial tensions in the United States and wanting
to know how you are
responding to that. Were they called for fake protest either to get African
Americans to turn out
to protest something that was fake or to have white supremacists be ginned
up to attack communities
of color. I think can I just say that I have not heard the phrase ginned up
in a very long time and
I really enjoy the use of the phrase ginned up. I would like to see a lot
more ginned up talk in
my life. So specifically what is Google doing to respond to that? We mainly
saw with respect to Russia
limited improper activity on our ad platforms. But in general we are not a
social networking company
across the products we do. So what Mr. Pichai is kindly trying to explain is
the thing you’re talking
about the Russians in 2016 trying to foment revolution trying to you know
incite protest and riots and
stuff. That was done on Facebook. So this congresswoman maybe doesn’t
understand that Facebook and
Google are different things, different products, different services. She may
not understand where that actually happened
in the first place. It’s really hard to
understand.
In India we haven’t done well as a company. So we typically are in
connecting groups of people
and that’s not how Google mainly works today. And so we haven’t seen that
kind of activities on our
platforms. But we are vigilant and you know and happy to share any findings
which come through as
we look into it more. I do like that they keep bringing up China. Google is
not a Chinese company.
TikTok I didn’t know wasn’t a Chinese company until these actual
congressional hearings where I
found out that they’re headquartered in Singapore now. But we’ll get to that
in a second because we’ve
got a couple more of these to get through. So again this is trying to
connect Google to China.
And so what he’s trying to do is find a way for Chinese spies to get through
Google to America so
that he can say that Google is now an enemy of America. In China has
deteriorated with respect to
surveillance censorship and the likes since Google first made the decision
in 2010 to leave. So I
want to ask very specifically are any employees currently having product
meetings on this Chinese project
and if not when did those end? We have undertaken an internal effort but
right now there are no plans to
launch a search service in China. So that’s it that’s actually the answer.
So the guy said like are you
going to create a product specifically for China and what he’s saying is are
you working with the Chinese
government? Mr. Pichai just said no no we’re not. But of course that’s not
the answer he wants so they
have to keep going. I said oh dear. Are there any current discussions with
any member of the Chinese government on
launching this app? Currently we are not in
discussions that are on launching a
search product in China. Are there any current discussions with members of
the Chinese government?
How many different ways can you say the same thing and how many different
ways can you get this
due to say no dude we’re not we’re not working with China. We’re not working
with China. We’re not
working with the Chinese government. Can we move on about this? This effort
currently is an internal
effort and you know I’m happy to consult as well as we transpire into the
action we take steps towards
launching a product in China. And who
at Google is leading the Dragonfly effort?
It’s a you know our efforts around building search you know it’s it’s
undertaken by our search
teams but these are distributed efforts. It’s a limited effort internally
currently. Will you Mr. Pichai
rule out launching a tool for surveillance and censorship in China while you
are CEO of Google?
Congressman I come into engaging one of the things which is important to us
as a company.
We have a stated mission of providing users with information and so we
always we think it’s
an our duty to explore possibilities to give users access to information and
you know I have that
commitment but you know as I said earlier on this we’ll be very thoughtful.
Okay so he just goes on
and just talked about how like like if we make a product for China and you
want to look at it we’re
actually going to let you look at it that’s basically all you say. We do get
some more entertaining
one. This has to do with very specifically I did enjoy this interaction.
Right now if you Google.
the word idiot under images a picture
of Donald Trump comes up I just did that.
Now this is it she thinks this is this is them manipulating the system which
I do enjoy.
How would that happen? How does search work so that that would occur?
So for me the problem here is that you have someone who needs to ask how
search works. Now I again
I’m not a technology expert but I do have a fundamental understanding of how
search works. Basically
the more something gets popular the more I get shared around the more I get
seen on the Internet
that moves it up the ranks to the top of the search. So basically because
everyone keeps talking about
how stupid Donald Trump is when you search the word idiot his reference is
getting pushed to the top and I’m sure
that week he did something really stupid.
We provide search today for any time you type in a keyword. As Google we
have crawled we’ve gone out
and crawled and stored billions of billions of web pages in our index and we
take the keyword
and match it against web pages and drag them. She’s nodding along this whole
time. She has no
fucking clue what he’s saying. When he starts talking about like they go out
and they crawl the Internet
and spiders and stuff. She’s like thinking of actual spiders crawling around
in the Internet.
You can tell she’s kind of already shut off just by the look on her face.
She’s like nodding but I
don’t think she’s paying attention at all. Based on over 200 signals things
like relevance,
freshness, popularity, how other people are using it and based on that you
know at any given time
we try to rank and find the best results for that query and then we evaluate
them at external
radars to make sure that and they evaluate it to objective guidelines. This
is still part of the
same hearing and then iPhone has come up multiple times because you know all
these congress people
are using iPhones. So because they’re using iPhones again they don’t
understand that there are different
phones. They think there’s only one product called phone and it is the
iPhone. I have a seven-year-old
granddaughter who picked up her phone before the election and she’s playing
a little game kind of
game a kid would play and up on their pops a picture of her grandfather and
I’m not going to say into
their record what kind of language was used around that picture of her
grandfather but I’d ask you
how does that show up on a seven-year-old’s
iPhone who’s playing a kid’s game.
Congressman iPhone is made by a different company and that’s it that’s all
you need right there is
they they keep running into the problem of these guys just don’t know what
they’re talking about
in the first place so how can they ask real and relevant questions he’s
saying like how is it possible that a picture
of me shows up with negative language my
granddaughter sees that don’t you
feel bad about my granddaughter being told that I’m a piece of shit but
maybe if you weren’t a piece of
shit that wouldn’t show up on your iPhone the thing that Google has nothing
to do with.
So you know I mean I might have been in
Android it was a hand me down to some guy.
So he’s he’s now like okay well maybe it wasn’t an iPhone maybe it’s an
Android bad or no
you know as long as you the problem is you’re not saying the thing I want
you to say so say the
thing I want you to say. I’m happy to fall open I understand this specifics
there may be an application which was being
used. So he goes back because it’s not
necessarily Google it depends on
what apps are on your phone this is again one of the fatal flaws that these
people just don’t seem
to understand. Then we’re going to move on to the actual tick-tock one so
this is this has happened
like about a week ago or two weeks ago of course it was really big on tick-
tock because all those
people thought you know this is unfair. I don’t think a lot of the people
who are talking about it
actually understood the issues at hand but I think really more than anything
else this is about
tick-tock undermining the monetary value of the competing services which has
pushed Congress
into action. Can you say with a hundred percent certainty that tick-tock
does not use the phone’s
camera to determine whether the content that elicits a pupil dilation should
be amplified by the
algorithm. So what he’s saying is that and I love this this to me shows that
he’s been fed information
that information is conspiracy level stuff he has no fucking clue what he’s
talking about. So he’s
saying when I look at tick-tock and a juicy Booty comes onto the screen my
eyes will dilate and tick-tock
is using my camera to watch my eyes and it’s going to see if my eyes dilate
and when I see the juicy
Booty my eyes dilate and it goes oh we better serve up Chong with Veef Chess
more juicy booties
and that’ll get him addicted to this and then we will have full control over
Chong with Veef Chess
life and future and all his money weirdly accurate though the response to
this again these are CEOs
they are much much more classy people than me my response to this would have
been no and just left
it at that and if you ask follow questions ask follow questions these guys
are very generous in their
answers that’s because they’re not really on trial I would have treated this
like a trial and just
said no and not explained it unless he asked more questions that and then
answered those questions
specifically and not explained anything can you tell me that we do not
collect body face or voice
data to identify our users we do not the only face data that you get that we
collect is when you
use the filters to have say sunglasses on your face we need to know where
your eyes are so what he’s
saying that if you are going to use a filter which means you’re already
using your camera they use
facial recognition to find out where your eyes are so that they can put fake
sunglasses on your
eyes they need to know where the top of your head is so they could put like
bunny ears on your ears
so we need to use any of those filters they need to know what a head is and
what it is so they can
put things on the right part of your head this guy again of course that’s
not the answer he’s looking
for therefore it’s completely unacceptable why do you need to know where the
eyes are if you’re not
seeing if they’re dilated because the dilation of the eyes is irrelevant to
anything because that
actually probably if you’re holding the phone the wrong way it’s not going
to pick up that information
anyways but why do you need to know where the eyes are we need to know where
the eyes are so there are filter works if
they’re not being dilated because that’s
irrelevant to what we’re talking
about and their dilated and their data is stored on your local device and
deleted after use if you
use it for facial again we do not collect body face or voice data to
identify our users I love
when they start demanding yes or no questions yes or no questions are
awesome because usually the
question is not sincere or and then the answer cannot be new is more nuanced
than what they’re
expecting but they just want people to say yes or no because they know if
they force them to corner
it’s probably a yes but not really the way you think it is as was pointed
out by chairwoman
Rogers you have regular contact with Chinese Communist Party Secretary Mr.
Zhang Fouping who is
your boss at bite dance correct no so you can see uh Mr. Chu is now gotten
into sort of my like his
own now is what I am all the time she says this is your boss and he goes no
this is not true and her face
is just like blowing away she’s like how is how is that possible and they
they would they constantly
during this congressional here remind him about like perjury laws despite
the fact that he’s completely
aware and let’s face facts that’s probably not his boss no Mr. Chu does
TikTok access the home Wi-Fi
network okay so that’s to me one of the classic questions that demonstrates
what I’m talking about.
does TikTok access the home Wi-Fi network whereas any device you have you
choose whether or not it
connects to the home Wi-Fi network and if you connect to the home Wi-Fi
network it has access
to everything you give it access to TikTok by itself cannot access the home
Wi-Fi network without
the user saying or turning on the Wi-Fi or something like that this guy uh
Mr. Hudson from North Carolina
does not understand how home Wi-Fi networks work only if the user turns on
the Wi-Fi it’s the best answer
because he can’t answer that question if you connect it then it’s connected
yes but if it’s if you
don’t connect it then it’s not connected and I do like that Mr. Chu looks so
confused by the question
I think that’s actually where he goes next I’m sorry I mean I understand uh
so if I have
so yeah he’s like I actually don’t even understand your question because it
‘s so weirdly basic
TikTok app on my phone and my phone is on my home Wi-Fi network does TikTok
access that network
it will have to to get access the network to get connections to the Internet
if that’s the question
is it possible then that it could access
other devices on that home Wi-Fi network.
co-cogasman that we do not do anything that is beyond any industry norms um
I believe the answer to
your question is no it could be technical let me get back to you okay I’d
appreciate if you can answer that
so basically what he’s saying is I have to maybe take you to a class and and
teach you about the
fundamentals of how um Wi-Fi and devices work again because I I don’t know
like I okay I know how
Wi-Fi works it’s a magic beam in my house that connects to the Internet
which is another set of
magic beams uh it’s it’s one in the air and then my phone connects to that
magic beam and through
that magic beam I can get to the Internet uh that is my fundamental
knowledge but I do understand
that I have to tell it to connect to that A so that it can connect to B so I
can get my Booty shaking
picks that I’m looking for so desperately actually right behind my head on
the on the video it’s actually
two gigantic booties I’m actually really glad that my my little face cover
is covering up because
that would be weirdly embarrassing uh this is one of my favorite uh no no no
no no no no okay the
Internet Jay just put in the chat the Internet someone else’s computer
either connected to you but
with a magic beam were very very long very expensive ocean cable ocean
cables are also magic
because how did they get there I mean you
can’t put a cable on the bottom of the ocean
so how did it get there it was it was there god made ocean cables and we
just connected to them
that’s what happened anyways it’s it’s so this this first part of the clip I
‘ve actually played
previously it’s what he says after this
because he didn’t get the answer he wanted
because again he doesn’t understand uh what
he’s talking about we get to this point
I find that hard to believe it’s our
understanding that they’re looking at the eyes
so this is it he didn’t get the answer he
wanted so I’m he’s just gonna I disagree
it’s our understanding so he’s been told information he said I’ve been told
this I’m going to take
my information is true what you’re telling me now again perjury I’m not
going to accept that answer.
how do you determine what age they are then so now he’s switched topics this
is something that
happens in a lot of arguments not just necessarily congressional hearings
but a lot of arguments
where you’ve made a point that point has been proven incorrect so they
change what they’re talking about
and they make it seem like it’s sort of the same deal so they’re not
actually wrong we’re just shifting gears
we rely on age gating as our key age of share age gating which is when you
ask the user what
age they are we have also developed some tools where we look at the public
profile to go through the
videos that they post to see whether that’s creepy so he’s basically again
the congressman here
does not understand what age gating is so uh Mr. chew is quite generally
about to explain it to him
but basically you put stuff on a public profile we look at that public
profile and see if the age you
put into the app so I said them I told him I was 18 years old but my
pictures are only 12 then they
can actually say maybe that user lied about their age so they’re actually
this is a safety measure
that tick-tock the company is put into place trying to make sure that young
people are not using the app
incorrectly let’s say or posting or seeing content they’re not supposed to
see but the guy because
he said we look at people’s faces he throws out that’s creepy to throw that
sort of tinge of color on
the answer tell me more about that it’s public so if you post a video that
you choose that video to go
public that’s how you get people to see a video we look at those to see if
you it matches of the age
that you talk to that that is the end of that it is a pretty simple
conclusion and I think it’s
self-evident to be to say that the problem with congressional hearings on
technology is the fact
that none of these people understand technology the problem with politicians
in general as the politicians
cannot understand the nature of every industry there is supposed to govern
and that is problematic
in that they are often talking about things they don’t understand
oh Dave Dave look at look at the okay you cannot have simply for Dave the
heart wipe is pretty good
though yeah look at this I found that the other day I was going through some
of my settings I really
enjoyed the heart wipe uh the Dave he got a walk this morning as soon as I
finished the podcast I’m
going to take him for a second walk uh and then I’m sorry this dog has one
of the best lives I know of he
he gets up he walks he has breakfast he sleeps he walks he sleeps he walks
he has dinner and he sleeps
he’s a pretty happy animal but okay what
was I saying now there’s way more important.
so it actually calls into question politics not just politicians but
politics in general
should people who don’t understand a subject be in charge of the subject so
should I if I become
a politician be in charge of economics when I don’t really understand
economics other than the
most fundamentals should I be in charge of technology or making rules about
the Internet when I
don’t honestly understand the Internet I clearly with my incredibly shallow
knowledge of technology
because I do enjoy technology I play games I stream I have a lot of devises
I like make this podcast
and it’s it’s all bits but if you actually ask if you actually ask me how
any of this truly functions
it how does my voice go into the microphone into the computer through twitch
onto the stream and
out into the world I mean it’s magic electricity I have no clue should I be
regulating that I actually
don’t believe I should be should I be in charge of economics and the world
bank absolutely not
because I don’t understand anything about it and that to me maybe is one of
the fundamental
flaws is we keep voting in people who are politicians to be in charge of
things that they don’t understand.
I am talking about a gigantic shift in just how everything should work and
basically we would need
not just technology people because technology people might not be the best
people to be in charge
of technology we need altruistic technology people to govern technology we
need altruistic economics
people to be in charge of economics those kind of things we would need altru
istic border patrol people
to be in charge of the borders and I think that maybe is where it all falls
apart because politicians
by their very nature are not altruistic certainly I can be bought and sold I
keep putting it out there
Doritos you want a sponsor the podcast I am absolutely available it’s not
going to say you very
much money considering how big your empire is so like let’s get corrupt and
yeah Magnus how do they work (upbeat music)
(upbeat music)