Blind Tiktoking

(upbeat music)

  • Okay, so I want to tell a little
    story and then get into the main topic.

The way I tell stories
tend to take a lot of time,

so this actually, who knows
how long this is gonna be.

I am warning you now.

There is some off-putting elements.

I have over the last few weeks
when I’m trying to do podcasts,

being complaining about the fact that I
cannot read my right eye, it’s gone fuzzy.

So about three weeks
ago, I was getting headaches

sort of in the back of my
head and behind my eyes.

I looked it up online, not a good place
to seek out your medical information.

And it said these were cluster
headaches and this was kind of migraine.

But I actually had a similar pain before.

It’s when I got punched in
the face on the other side

and I felt a similar kind of pain and
it’s ’cause my eye was actually swollen.

So I thought, you know what?

I’m gonna go to the
eye doctor just to check

’cause just regular aspirin
isn’t taking care of this.

I go to the eye doctor and he starts giving
me stuff and it’s all working out fine.

And I say, so what’s wrong with my eye?

And he goes, “Well, this is the
same as what you had last time.

” And I go, “Well, last time I got
belted in the head “by a giant angry man.

“This time I didn’t do anything.

“Like, nothing happened
to my face or a head.

“No impact of any sort.

” So what caused it?

He’s like, “Oh, well, this is just
swelling “and swelling could be caused.

” Cause of anything.

And he kind of did like
a little shrug most drip.

He kind of did a little shrug gesture,
like, you know, life happens sometimes

and sometimes that swells up.

So I was like, “You know,
give me some details.

” He’s like, “Well, it could
be an injury, an infection,

“stress, any of number
of things could cause this.

” So if you go online, he
literally looks at me and says,

“If you go online,
you’ll see a long list.

” And I was like, “Okay.

” So basically, he’s
saying, “You don’t know.

” This is the doctor’s way of
saying, “I don’t know what caused this,

“but at least we
can start treating it.

” He gives me some medicine and
the pain in my eyes starts to go in.

I start to feel pain in my cheek.

And now that is where
one of your sinuses is.

And he said infection.

I thought, “Oh, maybe
because of my allergies and stuff,

“every now and then,
I get a sinus infection.

” “Every now and then,
I get a sinus infection.

” Every now and then,
I get a sinus infection.

Every now and then,
I get a sinus infection.

That’s happened a couple times in my life.

So I go to the nose doctor.

He’s your tube doctor.

He goes to your nose, mouth,
and ear, something like that.

So I go to him and I go, “I
think I have a sinus infection.

” He doesn’t even
really check much.

He just goes, “Okay, it
gives me a huge thing of pills.

” There’s one morning.

I have to take the pills for my
eye and the pills for my nose.

So there’s one day.

I remember it was a
Wednesday for some reason.

I had to take the variety of pills for my
eye and the variety of pills for my nose.

And in total for
breakfast, I had like 15 pills

with me, which made
me feel incredibly old.

Okay, whatever.

Sinus infection goes away
because that starts to feel better.

And then I realize, like, you
know, I’m not seeing as well.

I have always worn glasses, so
my eyes have always been poor,

but I think something’s
right, I go back and he’s like,

“Oh, the back of
your eye is still swollen.

” So he’s giving me
these steroid eyedrops.

He’s like, “Well, the steroid
eyedrops aren’t gonna get back there.

” So what we’re gonna
do is give you an injection.

And I was like, “Huh,
an injection from my eye.

” Well, I guess, you know, powerful
medicine is often injected into your body.

So that’s not a thing.

And then I’m like, “Wait, he
means an injection in my eye.

” So this is like
horror movie stuff.

And I am just taking my
deep breath and I’m going,

“Okay, yep, yep, let’s do that.

” Okay?

He’s like, “Right now.

” So I don’t know if this
was a technique or just,

this is how fast he moves, ’cause
this is a clinic they just do eyeballs.

It’s all service, like,
you wanna get glasses,

contacts, eye infection,
anything, this happened.

Pink eye, whatever,
they take care of it there.

So they have everything,
all the facilities, one clinic.

And so they have me
sit outside for a minute

and then like two minutes
later, they have me go in

and they have the chair
that you light on your back.

And I am, that two minutes was
enough to get me like, worked up.

I was like, “Okay, yeah, okay,
I’m gonna get stabbed in the eye.

” I did this in Dead
Space, I believe, was the

video game where you had
to aim it at your own eye

and then push the button, didn’t hurt then.

I’m not gonna hurt now, but I
mean, this is like horror movie stuff.

They line me down.

I’m gonna go through
the whole process for you.

So they line me down
and then Igor comes in.

Igor is not the guy
putting it in my eye, I hope.

Because the first thing Igor
does is he walks in the room.

So I’m lying down, flat on my back.

Already kind of like a vulnerable position.

He bumps into a couple of things.

And my first
thought, “Oh, fuck no.

” Fuck no, this guy is not
going to put a needle in my eye.

He can’t even walk straight.

Then he’s the guy who’s gonna put a couple
of drops in, probably to dilate my pupil,

and then a couple other drops
in, which is gonna be anesthetic.

So he puts a couple drops
in, boop, boop, he misses.

It goes on my cheek and I’m like, “Oh,
fuck, he’s not putting a needle in my eye.

” This guy, if this guy
gets the needle, if this guy

doesn’t put the needle in
my, I’m gonna just get a leaf.

I can’t, I can’t.

I have no confidence.

He takes like three shots to get
the first set of drops in my eye.

And I’m like, “Isn’t this all you do?”

Like, as the nurse in an eye clinic,

isn’t this literally one
of the only things you do

is drop, put drops into
people’s eyes and you’ve missed.

And then he gets the other one.

He goes, “This isn’t
anesthetic in Japanese.

” And then he puts those
drops in, also misses a couple.

And I’m like, “At least
he’s being generous.

” He’s kind of like nay palming my eye
area, knowing that someone will get in.

So he just floods that.

And I’m just like, “Oh no, oh no.

If someone else doesn’t come in real
soon, I’m gonna panic, I’m gonna leave.

” And this is, you know, you can
feel yourself working yourself up.

That’s the problem.

So the doctor then walks in and I’m like,

okay, doctor then
immediately starts filling

with a machine, but
not in a confident way.

Like, when I work with OBS, which I’ve
worked with a lot or I try to put graphics up

or something, like you
can tell when I am just

setting stuff up and when
something’s not going right

and I’ve kind of messed
it up and I’m trying to fix it.

And then he’s asking Igor for helping.

What does Igor do?

He bumps into some more stuff
’cause the dude is clumsy as hell.

And I’m like, this is just the
wrong guy for an eye clinic.

Eyes are incredibly sensitive.

This is not the kind of
thing you want happening

right before someone
stabs you in the literal eye.

Igor goes out after they fix this thing.

And then the doctor
has very soothing voice.

He’s actually a very good doctor.

They put in those clamps
that keep your eyes open

and a hugely bright
light right in your eyes.

You can’t see anything.

And it’s like, I keep mentioning
the movie but then every time

I tell this story and then I
forget the name of the movie.

So they clamp your eyes
open and you can’t see anything.

No, the doctor says, look up.

I’m lying on my back and I
look straight towards the ceiling,

which was at that point
straight forward out of my face.

And the doctor goes, no, look up.

And I’m like, well, this
is not the time to argue

but I’ve actually had this
argument with a coworker.

Up is a function of gravity.

So down is towards the
center of the earth and up is out.

When you’re in space, there is
no up because things do not fall

because you fall down
therefore you rise up.

So if you’re lying on your back,
up is still away from the ground.

That is, people don’t think of it that way
but up is actually a function of gravity.

If there’s no gravity, there is no up
because if up is towards the top of my head

then if I lie down,
I just start sliding

towards my feet because
I would be falling down.

So I look up straight at the ceiling,
straight into that light, so I’m blind now.

And then he goes, no, no, up.

And he taps the top of
my head and I realize he’s,

oh, you don’t mean up.

You mean towards up my eye.

I’m trying to think of the
phrase he could have used

to make that happen
more efficiently because of

course I think he’s stupid
but he thinks I’m stupid.

It’s one of those situations.

So look up towards the top of your head.

That maybe would work.

So I look up and then, because of
the anesthetic, I don’t even feel it.

I feel something kind of touch
my eye and that actually would

have been the insert of the
needle and he does it real fast.

I mean, this is, again,
Kudos to the doctor.

He’s very good, he’s very
fast, he’s very efficient

and this took no time
and all he would do.

He said, sorry, this might hurt.

They always say that in Japanese
before they give you a needle.

Is this kind of standard thing?

I actually think it makes it worse.

They should just be like, boop.

And then he squeezed
it in, it was a steroid,

pulls it out, didn’t
even notice really.

I felt something touch my eye.

I don’t know if that was
it going in or coming out.

And then he goes, that’s
it, he takes the clamps

off and then I’m sort
of blank a few times.

If I’m being honest, physically,
I basically felt nothing.

But the adrenaline and the
terror I felt was untouchable.

So I go out into the waiting room
’cause I have to pay for this experience

and I start sending my
friend’s messages on my phone

and I’m like, I just got my eye
stabbed, I just got a needle in my eye.

This is like a nightmare fuel.

And I realized my hands are shaking.

And it’s because I’m coming down from the
adrenaline for like five minutes straight.

I’m just sitting the
going, it was terrifying.

That was last week.

I’m now I’ve gone back again.

He’s giving me some oral steroids.

It is slowly getting better.

But basically when I do
these podcasts and stuff,

I have notes and
basically I try to hide the

notes under the
camera so I’ll stick it up.

It’s actually now right in front of
my face, but it’s below the camera.

Now if I hold it there,
I’m incapable of reading it.

And my writing is incredibly
messy, so I can’t read the writing.

That’s the problem.

So I did an engineer’s Japan this morning.

I have my notes up and I’m gonna
have to look at it a little closer today.

That is gonna be just a problem for the
next little while until I can see again.

The thing is, again,
I’ve worn glasses since

I was 16, so my eyes
are garbage anyways.

At this point, if they
wanna put me up for

experimental, let’s replace
your eyes with robots.

I’m on board.

I will absolutely replace my
eye with a robot at this point.

I’ll clockwork orange, that’s the movie.

At the end of clockwork
orange, they reprogram the guy

and they block his eyes open like that
and make him watch propaganda videos.

That’s stuck, that image stuck with
me, even though I’ve saw that movie

when I was like five, 10
years old or something.

Should not have been watching that movie.

You just became Isaac from Dead Space.

(laughs)

That was one of my first mentions.

I did the thing in real life
that happened in Dead Space.

That is actually was my first thought,

like, oh my God, I’m
doing the Dead Space level.

But in Dead Space, I think
if I remember correctly,

you’re aiming it and then you have
to push it down with the two joysticks.

It’s like a dual joystick thing.

But I think the idea,
the concept is that you’re

doing it to yourself, if
I remember correctly,

and then you have to
press a button to stab

it in and if you miss,
you failed that level.

But that’s the only thing I
remember from that game.

So I was super impactful.

Like, if I’m being really
honest, that’s a bit, I remember.

  • I hated that in Dead Space.
  • I think you were
    supposed to hate it in

Dead Space, which
actually means it was good.

If we’re being honest, if it
was supposed to be gross

and off-putting and terrible and
you felt that way, it achieved its goal.

Horror movies, if you
walk out of the horror movie

and feel, ah, that’s
actually, they’ve done a

good job, which is, you
know, counterintuitive.

‘Cause if you walk out like I had
a great time, that was really fun.

That’s not, that’s not a good horror movie.

Just letting everyone know that my
eyes all messed up, I can’t really see.

If now, though, if I mess
up something in a video

game, I can actually
claim it ’cause I can’t see.

As you go, ’cause I’m,
ah, I didn’t see that side

of the screen ’cause you know
nothing on this side works anymore.

I’m going to play the intro song again.

So I’ve done a lot of
scary things in my life.

Like, again, I fight people for fun.

I’ve ridden motorcycles and had crashes.

I crashed a car.

I’ve put myself in dangerous situations.

I got in trouble with the Korean
mafia a little bit when I was in Korea.

All scary.

Nothing compares to the mental
terror you put yourself through

when someone’s like, I’m going
to stick a needle in your eye now.

Let’s get to it.

That’s, that’s actually
what it came down to.

It wasn’t a terrible,
dangerous, awful thing,

but the mental thing
you do to yourself.

So let me play the intro song again, and
then I can edit this podcast much better.

(upbeat music)

♪ After the mind of the academy ♪

♪ Shocked my pictures ♪

♪ Where the bastards of philosophy ♪

♪ Drinking the clutch ♪

♪ Rings of upper skills ♪

♪ Like a soccer punch ♪

♪ Won’t come to see in my feet ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh see in my feet ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh see in my feet ♪

♪ Yeah, oh see in my feet ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh see in my feet ♪

I’m very excited to have my own theme song.

Having your own theme
song changes the feeling

of your podcast, if you go through
the trouble of actually making a podcast.

We’re talking about TikTok.

So the TikTok band in America is kind of
gone through, it’s actually not finished.

Did you commission it?

Ah yes, there’s a whole other story.

DX Man, you’re just going to
get all the stories out of me.

I had a presentation to do at work,

and it was a very boring
presentation, and my boss was like,

you have to make this
get people excited about

this thing that we’re
doing, and it’s not exciting.

And he’s like, get people excited.

I’m like, that’s not gonna happen.

There’s nothing I can do to get excited.

So I was like, well, what can I do?

And I go to chat GPT, and I put
in all the criteria for a rap song.

So I put in the criteria for
this thing we’re introducing.

It’s just a course, and
then gave it criteria

for the different
elements of a rap song.

And a produced one
I put in digital editing,

now went online to try to find someone
who would do a beat and sing it for me.

You can find lots of people
who do beats and lots of

people who do songs,
that will do like rap for you.

But they won’t do both.

You can find five real,
find people who do beats.

On five real, find people who
will do a track, a rap for you.

But they won’t do both.

So I ended up going to a different site.

I think it was Upwork, and I found
a guy’s name who will do both.

And so he’s from Zimbabwe, his name
Stones Mojo, and I sent him a message.

I was like, I want a song
for this presentation.

I made a music video for it.

He will do both parts.

So I was really excited.

I got him to do the song.

I put the song.

I cut together a little video.

And it was all like from
free clips from websites,

like copyright free stuff.

And if you search in like urban
dance, you get a very specific look.

So I put all those together,
and I cut in some little joke bits,

and then I played it, and
people at the company loved it.

I mean, that’s what it came down to.

And so then I was like a
couple months later, I was like,

I’ve had this theme song for
this podcast for a long time

that doesn’t fit the tone
of the podcast, because it

was like heavy, which I
like a lot of heavy music.

But when I’m sitting here
talking, it’s actually quite relaxed.

So that quite relaxed atmosphere
didn’t come through in the music.

So I was like, you know what?

Dude, I’ll commission another song.

I gave him the lyrics, so my friend
wrote, “Enter the Mind of the Academy,”

’cause I have the chunk of beef
chest Academy of martial arts t-shirts.

I wrote, “Drinking at lunch brings
verbal skills “like a sucker punch.

” And then he said,
“Welcome to Seamick Bee.

” And that was it.

And I gave him like a feeling,
like an old diggable planet song.

And in like two weeks later,
suddenly this song pops up

and I got this new theme
song for my podcast.

It’s great lyrics.

Yeah, I mean, again, it
was sort of a community

effort, which actually
makes it better as well.

‘Cause my friend wrote a line.

We only, again, a
theme song can only be

like 30 seconds long
before it gets annoying.

So yeah, I listened to it one more time.

So you can actually hear what he says.

It’s, again, he’s from
Zimbabwe, so he’s English.

He says, “I love, he doesn’t
say Seamick Bee like I do.

” He says, “See
y’all, walk beep.

” (upbeat music)

“Enter the Mind of the Academy.

” “Shuck my beef chest
where the best is a philosophy.

” ♪ Drinking the lunch brings
up a skills like a soccer punch ♪

♪ Won’t come to see I’m my beat ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh, see I’m my beat ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh, see I’m my beat ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh, see I’m my beat ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh, oh ♪

So yeah, enter the Mind of the
Academy where the best is a philosophy.

Yeah, no, I really like that.

I really like that he doesn’t
sound like I would sound

if I sang it, which, in my
opinion, makes it better.

But we’re talking about TikTok today.

I like TikTok.

I’m an old dude, but I like TikTok.

I use it a lot.

I take clips from the
podcast and put on there.

They don’t get any traction.

That’s fine.

I don’t care.

I’m there to have a good time.

And if one person comes from TikTok
and watches some more stuff, that’s great.

For me, the most
interesting elements of this

is what is actually the
issue they’re talking about.

‘Cause when you’re
talking about politicians,

the things they’re saying are
never the actual issue at hand.

So what is the actual issue at hand?

I’ve done a couple of episodes of
Seamig B now on Senate hearings

and the Senate hearing is
never what they’re talking about.

Like they say, the last one was
about child safety and social media.

And almost every conversation they had

with the CEOs of these
really big tech companies

had very little to
do with child safety.

They kind of grilled
Zuckerberg on it in Facebook.

When they got to the president of TikTok,

all they really talked about is whether
or not he was Chinese or from China.

That’s now a very
famous clip on the internet

because they ask him in about three
or four different ways are you Chinese?

And he’s like, no, I’m from Singapore.

No, I’m from Singapore.

I did military service for
two years in Singapore.

I am not Chinese.

If China invaded Singapore, I
would get called up to fight China.

But you can see what is him having
to do, having his connection to China.

How does that help or detract from
child safety and the usage of TikTok?

It doesn’t actually mean anything.

So this is one of the more
interesting issues for me

is what they’re talking about
now is not the actual issue at hand.

And to me, when I talk about
America and when I think about America,

the fundamental beliefs of
America is a capitalist system.

I’m from Canadian.

I’m actually from a socialist republic,

which means social
services are inherently a

part of the political
system where I come from.

I live in Japan, which
is not a republic as such.

Japan is very socialist.

It must be a socialist
democracy, regardless.

Social welfare is a big issue in Japan.

They want social services.

They want to take care of people.

When I got my needle in my
eye, the entire thing, so we’re

talking about drugs,
examination, and needle in the eye.

So all those procedures and
stuff, I paid 1,600 yen, which

is about $15, probably less
now with the exchange rate.

So we’re talking about going to a doctor,
like a visit, some actual treatments,

all in the span of an hour,
and I’m paying less than $20.

And that’s socialized health care.

In America, they talk about
capitalism, capitalism, capitalism.

And I’m always interested
in the true reality

of what happens in America is
not really capitalism as they claim.

So what they’re talking about with TikTok
is that this company is a national threat

because the Chinese are collecting
data, or they can collect data.

Now, my issue with that version of the
statement is, every app we use collects data.

Now, you could specify which
kind, but at the end of the day,

Google collects a ton of data
that you don’t want them to collect.

Facebook collects a lot of information
that you don’t want them to collect.

YouTube collects a lot of information
that you don’t want them to collect.

It is ridiculous, or there’s the other side
that this bill, if it comes into effect,

because they don’t
mention TikTok in the bill.

TikTok is the reason
they’re putting it

forward, but they don’t
mention TikTok by name.

It just says apps.

So you have two possibilities.

One, they ban TikTok, and they
just stick to what they’re saying.

Or now they have the ability to ban
and control social media in America.

So if YouTube steps out of line,
you’re collecting too much data.

That’s the reason we use.

Now we can shut down
YouTube or ban YouTube.

Now we can ban Facebook.

Now we can do whatever we
want to show through media sites.

The most interesting
prospect here is that with

Biden in control right now,
if this law goes through,

he could shut down
Donald Trump’s truth social,

because it’s an adversary
to the current government.

And that’s one of the
lines they put in there.

They want it to be an adversary
to the government collecting data.

So since Donald Trump is
collecting data, because all apps do,

and he’s an adversary to the
American government in its current state,

Biden would then be
free to ban true social.

I don’t think they’ve thought that through,

but that is actually one of
the implications of this bill.

And it goes back to sort of
the Patriot Act, where these like,

if we think you’re a terrorist,
we can do whatever we want,

and now we’re just going to classify
anyone we want to attack as a terrorist.

That’s the kind of logic
that might be happening here.

We’ll use TikTok as the example.

That’s the terrorist that we’re attacking.

But then we can classify
other things or other

people as terrorists,
so then we can do that.

So now we can classify
other apps as adversarial

so that we can attack
them in any way we want.

They can make a blanket
ban on all companies

that are collecting data
and they can level that.

They could do this.

They can say companies
are not allowed to collect data.

This would trash Google,
it would trash Facebook.

But they can say, look, let’s make it fair.

Let’s make it a level playing field.

You’re just not allowed
to collect data anymore,

or we’re going to specify
what data you can collect.

And the thing is, one of the
things in the Senate hearings

with the president of TikTok
was he was like, it’s all voluntary.

Like you click and agree before you sign
up to TikTok that we can collect this data.

So why are you angry
about the data you’ve

agreed to let us collect
us collecting that?

They’re angry about it going back to China

because they’re not
really sure what they

can do with it is I
think actually the issue.

So Trump came out recently.

This is interesting as he says, he
wants to stop the ban on TikTok.

He says, I hate, I think
it’s because he hates China

more than anything else at
the moment, but he doesn’t

want them to ban TikTok
because Facebook would then grow.

And Facebook helped
rig the previous election.

The data doesn’t even go to China.

The database is in America.

That, I don’t know if that’s true.

I actually have a clip I need
to find and I want to insert.

And it’s propaganda on TikTok’s best.

They created a script and it has two
creators reading the exact same script.

It’s very natural.

I’ll be able to find that because I know
I’m shared it with my friends in Discord.

So I’ll actually throw
that up on the screen.

It’s this is not a one-sided thing.

Like there’s no good guy here.

TikTok is not the good guy.

The US government is not the good guy.

TikTok’s an abusive
app as is every other app.

I mean, no joke.

They all are exactly the same.

But if you understand that,
you know how to take care

of yourself or teach your kids
how to take care of themselves

and stuff like that.

But if you’re going to put limits on
one, you gotta put limits on them all.

That’s just, I think, the
easiest way to do things.

‘Cause again, it should
just be fair competition.

This was an interesting TikTok that came
out because they’re trying to defend TikTok.

These are TikTok creators.

And you would think because
of the very natural feeling

they present that this is just off the
top of the head, this is off the dome.

But how quickly this becomes
a script is really interesting.

You recognize that they can
take TikTok and change that.

They can pretty much
call any type of Chinese.

Because it’s parent company.

Right by it isn’t it’s in a Chinese code.

No, they are incorporated in the cake.

TikTok is incorporated
in the sake of the course.

They’re seeing a goal,
they’re seeing a goal.

We look at the ownership of the company.

16, we’re looking at the
ownership of the investors.

That’s what you’re saying is
over by international investors.

The vast majority of the majority
of the American are allied nations.

Again, the vast majority of the
company is owned by the employee.

Again, the vast majority
of which are not in Chinese.

And the other Chinese is
owned by the American user.

Only one of which is in Chinese.

Now, TikTok does have a
headquarter stored in Austin, Texas.

Now, but not only does it have a
headquarter to come in mainland China.

But not only does it have
a headquarter company.

TikTok has a headquarter ability.

Actually, it was the daily show
that used to do this or John Oliver.

And they would take local news stations,

would usually be given a script of
something to say to talk about an issue.

And this is not an uncommon strategy.

This is propaganda.

So they want to explain to TikTok users.

This is obviously from TikTok.

This is a script they’ve written.

I love that they dropped an F bomb in there
to make it seem more authentic and natural.

Makes you wonder.

Oh, no, no, it’s not wonder.

TikTok actually at like 100% pays
these creators their popular creators.

They gave them a script.

They say, we’ll give you this much money.

Read the script to make
it as natural as possible.

Those guys did a great job.

They gave you the basic facts.

They were like, oh, yeah,
the servers are in Austin.

It’s owned by this many people.

It’s incorporated in the Cayman Islands.

They’re done an incredible
amount of research.

Like, if you think about
what I’m talking today,

I read about 15, 16 articles.

And I’m going to give
you a very shallow view of

what this TikTok ban is
in some of the implications.

But there are people that like TikTok has
an investment in this not going through.

So if they can get the facts to the people
who watch TikTok and they have them believe

those facts, well, then
now they have ammunition

to go to the government and say, well,
you know, it’s not a Chinese company.

So a bunch of Americans
now go to their Congress

people and say, it’s
not a Chinese company.

The servers are in Austin.

Yeah, 100%.

That was provided by
TikTok to those creators

so that they could read it and
they just have a very natural flow.

And maybe that’s the kind
of content they do already.

But immediately I was
suspicious of why does that

guy have so much information
squished together that well.

I actually, the thing I
was wondering the most

is did they read it or memorize it
because they’re pacing was pretty similar.

Like they had overlaps a couple times.

That was pretty cool.

But we’re still talking about really
the ban on the government side first.

Trump said that he doesn’t, he doesn’t want
TikTok ban because then people will go back

to Facebook and
Facebook helped rig the last

election and I think Donald Trump,
he might be a little out of touch.

I think that’s pretty
fair to say because if

people leave TikTok,
it’s mostly young people.

The fact that I’m on there, I’m already one
of the oldest people on TikTok probably.

They’re not going back to Facebook.

They would go to another app.

I actually think this, the worst
case scenario is that TikTok dies.

But then a new app takes its place
that does almost the exact same thing.

And that’s where young people go.

The interesting thing
about Trump though, in

2020 as president, Trump
signed in an executive

order for ByteDance to divest itself
from TikTok so essentially to sell TikTok.

At this point, the
recording was actually

interrupted and I had to take
care of family emergencies.

So we’re actually picking up
on the next day, which is why

it doesn’t sort of link directly
to what was said before.

So there’s a couple other
different views you can take of this.

One of them is, what
are the Chinese things?

The Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokesman said,

Washington resorts to political tools
when U.S. businesses failed to compete.

They’re saying because
TikTok has become so

dominant and capitalism
has failed that these

Western capitalistic
companies can’t compete

with TikTok, that the government now has
to step in and shut down the competition,

which is completely
an anti-capitalistic idea.

I find that one very interesting.

I don’t tend to take
the Chinese Communist

Party’s opinions very
seriously because they

just tend to say
things that are very pro

China, but of course,
when they do take a shot

at other countries, it’s
always very entertaining

because they always just
like lay into them really hard.

It is interesting to
look at how the votes

were done because 15
Republicans voted against the ban.

They said, look, we should
absolutely warn people.

We should tell people that this
might be a data security issue.

This might be China
collecting your personal

information, but if
they know that and they

still choose to use the app,
that should be acceptable.

I actually kind of agree with these
Republicans, because that is capitalism.

Give people all the
information they need to

make their own decision,
but then you have

to allow people to
make their own decision.

That’s freedom.

That’s in America, part
of freedom of speech.

You should be allowed to say these things.

People are supposed to be
able to make their own decisions.

This does sort of imply that the bill
isn’t actually about TikTok the company.

It’s about apps that can be banned if
they’re being labeled a security threat.

So this means like any other app, as I was
saying, jokingly before, it’s true social.

It’s owned by an adversary to the current
government, so it could be shut down.

If you wanted to like
broaden these rules,

Facebook had all that Russian
influence during the elections.

That could say it’s being attacking America
and they could shut down that down if they

want, Elon Musk, when
he took over Twitter,

absolutely destroyed
the security basically,

fired everyone who had
any sort of knowledge there.

So he just ripped apart the
security aspect of Twitter.

At that point, it’s no
longer a secure website.

It could be banned.

So you can see keeping the bill vague as to
what it actually would define as a security

threat means that you could then broaden
it and attack any media outlet you want.

So then we get to
Congressman Mike Gallagher,

and he said TikTok is becoming the dominant
news platform for Americans under 30.

So I got that clip, so
let’s play that right now.

So in this clip, he’s
trying to assure people

that this isn’t about
just banning apps

that they disagree with, that
this is a very focused thing.

But then we learned what
it’s actually focused on.

The only impacted sites
are those associated

with foreign adversary
apps, such as tiktok.com.

It can never be used
to penalize individuals.

The text explicitly prohibits that.

And it cannot be used to censor speech.

It takes no position at all on the content
of speech, only foreign adversary control.

Foreign adversary
control of what is becoming

the dominant news platform
for Americans under 30.

This is a common sense measure
to protect our national security.

I urge my colleagues to support
this critical bipartisan legislation.

So what he’s actually
done in there, and I think by

accident, is tell you what
he’s actually worried about.

He’s saying that
this is about a foreign

adversary, this is about the
apps and security and stuff.

It won’t go under,
won’t be going after free

speech, but then he
immediately says TikTok

has become the primary news
source for people under the age of 30.

So people are getting their
information from TikTok.

They’re not getting their
information from the apps we influence.

They’re not getting
their information from the

apps we maybe have a certain
amount of control over already.

They’re getting their
information from this app that is

controlled by a company
that is from a different country.

If I start an app in
Belgium, which is not

a foreign adversary,
but then I start saying

a lot of anti-American
stuff, how quickly would they

change the parameters
that it’s a negative influence?

And so this is, I think,
what it really comes down to.

They have less influence and
control over the news media.

And as sort of traditional
media, like news shows

and stuff become less
popular with people under 30.

I mean, most people I know under the
age of 30 don’t watch television at all.

They will stream stuff, they will
pick and choose what they watch.

And when it comes to
news, it is going to just get

filtered into them through
an app they watch like TikTok.

They’re saying we
have to take that news

source away from them so we can put them
back on the news that they like it out.

I think the reality
would be that they would

just find a different
news source that they

also don’t have control over because that’s
going to be part of the appeal of this.

And it’s all about control.

So we had the clip previously
of the two guys reading the

exact same script that was
obviously provided them by TikTok.

We have the senators
saying like we’re losing

control over the
news, over what people

actually take into their lives,
how they get their information.

We need to stop that.

We did get to the last little bit.

It was a Democrat, Congressman
who got very famous on TikTok.

He has 2 million followers and
he voted for the ban of TikTok.

So basically TikTok
made him famous, put him

into Congress and then now he’s in
Congress and he votes to ban TikTok.

He comes out and he
says like, oh, I’m so sorry.

This isn’t really what you think it is.

He essentially said I voted
to ban TikTok because

I didn’t think it would
go through through.

I apologize.

I did not handle this
situation well from top

to bottom and that is
why I have been completely

roasted on this app over
the last 48 hours and I get it.

If I were in your shoes, I would
probably feel the same way.

I would see someone
who used this app to build

a following and then
appears to have voted

against it and I would
be upset and I would

feel like I deserved
more of an explanation.

So here goes.

I like this app.

I’ve been able to
reach a lot of people and

hear directly from
them and it’s been great.

I’m also in Congress and
I’ve been a part of some

briefings about this app
that were genuinely alarming.

When I was reading the bill, the part I
agreed with was the part that tries to force

a sale because I
figured this would just be

a better app if we didn’t
have to worry about

the stuff that comes
with it being potentially

controlled by an
adversarial government.

The part I didn’t like was
the part that threatens a ban.

After the country is on
this app, it has become

a force for good in the
lives of millions of people.

So I weighed those two
things and the reason

I voted for it was
because I genuinely believe

the chance of a ban is
practically zero for a lot of reasons.

Financial, political,
geopolitical, I just

don’t think there’s any
real chance of a ban.

I still believe that, but
maybe I got that balance rock.

On the one hand, I have information
about this app that isn’t public.

On the other, the language of the bill
was going to upset millions of people.

My thinking was, I
could reconcile those

two things by just making a video
that said, “Hey, here’s the situation.

” And that was a total disaster.

I really overestimated my
ability to do that in a really hot

moment when millions of
people were laser focused on this.

Some of you have said, “I must
have been bought by somebody.

” Well, that is exactly why I don’t
take any corporate pack money.

Not from TikTok, not from
Meta, not from any corporation.

That doesn’t change the
fact that I screwed this up.

I did.

I apologize and I will keep you busted.

I don’t know what he was
actually thinking, but he absolutely

was not thinking like, “I’m
going to do a protest vote.

” This is actually
weirdly Brexit logic.

So when Brexit went
through, they interviewed

a bunch of people who voted for Brexit,
who actually said like, “Oh, I voted for

Brexit because I didn’t
think it would pass.

” And the interesting thing, it
shows that votes actually matter.

So you can’t do protest votes.

You have to vote with your
own best interest at heart.

Other wise, you might
end up actually getting

what you voted for, even
if it was a protest vote.

There was a lot of
people with Brexit who

said, “Oh, I didn’t think it would
go through, so I voted for it.

” And it was just to
show how angry I am.

But now you’re not part of
the European Union anymore.

Now you’ve actually
gotten what you voted for.

So how do you feel now?

I have no idea how far this is going to go.

It wouldn’t surprise me either way.

It wouldn’t surprise me if this just died.

It needs another vote,
I think, in the Senate.

And it wouldn’t surprise
me if it died right there.

It wouldn’t surprise me if this was
considered unconstitutional in some way.

I think divesting the TikTok from ByteDance
isn’t the worst thing ever, if I’m being

honest, because I don’t
care about the company.

I mean, I’m doing this topic because
I’m interested in all these processes.

I’m interested in the votes.

I’m interested in how the companies and the
government are fighting back against each other.

I’m interested in what
this is really about.

And the core issue that
has come up again and

again is this is about control of the news
and the news that young people take in.

And TikTok is a very liberal website.

It’s a very liberal place where
people express themselves.

And so a lot of young people
are finding their voice there.

And I think that liberalnessness is what is
actually scaring these Republican senators.

The fact that this
app is being provided to

them from China just
makes it that much worse.

But clearly the thing
is that they’re saying

it about, like every
other Senate hearing

I’ve dealt with on
Seamig B, it’s not actually

the actual issue isn’t what
they’re actually talking about.

I don’t have a big
investment in TikTok.

It’s not a big part of my life.

I don’t really care for social
media if I’m being honest.

So what happens isn’t going
to impact me in any great way.

But I am interested
to see the justifications

and the lies and the back and forth
and the propaganda and all this stuff.

And then the thing
is, if ByteDance divest

itself of TikTok and he
gets taken over by one

of the Shark Tank guys
or something, because

those are the guys who
actually interested in it.

I bet that would
destroy the company.

I bet TikTok would collapse or the people
who really love TikTok for what it actually

is right now would leave
for some other version

of TikTok would come up
with a different company.

We’re going to offer you what TikTok used
to be right out the gate, here’s a new app.

And then we’re already at a point where
young people coming up right now, they don’t

want to use an app that is what older people
use, even if it’s like five, ten years.

They want their own app.

And that’s actually to me
how social media is going.

It’s a generational thing.

And the younger generation
that’s being coming

into their own right
now and getting into

social media, they don’t want
to use someone else’s app.

They want their own thing.

It was actually my
theory of every generation

has their own, it’s
almost like yearly.

There has to be like a
summer love song and

you can’t, you can like
or appreciate or enjoy

the love songs that came
before, but it’s not your love song.

So you need that one summer, that one song
and that’s your song that you associate and

that becomes you, it
represents you as a person.

It’s the same thing with apps,
it may be a five, ten year period.

But in that period is
when that becomes your

app, the app you
associate yourself with.

And that’s what you grew up with and that’s
where you came to maturity with and that’s

where you learned a
lot about the world from.

And so I actually think
TikTok only has so

much life in it left
anyways because there’s

going to be something that
comes up that replaces it fairly soon.

These apps and stuff
are getting so big, so we

talk about Facebook,
Facebook has been around

forever and it’s
like, oh, it’s not going

to go anywhere, but it’s
just not as popular as it was.

And young people now,
they don’t use it anymore.

Instagram I would say
it’s already on its sort

of death nails, it’s kind
of going the same way.

Twitter has gone through so much.

I mean, I don’t think anyone even
considers it particularly relevant anymore.

So we are waiting for the next app to
come in and sort of take over this space.

So I think the loss
of TikTok, I think the

loss of any one of these social
media companies is not a big deal.

They grow so fast and they
become dominant so quickly.

People think, oh,
you’ll never be able to

crush these companies,
but the natural process

is speeding up and
something’s going to come

up and it’s going to
be popular with young

people and then other
people are going to get on it

because that’s where you
have to be to be trendy.

It’s where you have to do to make your
deals, so where you have to go to be popular.

And I’m going to miss it, but that’s where
things are going to happen in the future.

And this cycle, it’s going to continue.

So this life cycle is
interesting, but now

with the government
trying to interfere, trying

to take control
over it, I don’t know if

that’s going to speed
it up or actually make

it hang around longer
because there actually

may be more resistance
to it going away because

this people actually
care about it and people

love fighting back
against the government.

But we should all know
there’s really only one platform

you should care about
and that is the beef nation.

What up, beef nation?

I am going to commit myself to trying to
say that more often in sound, more sincere.

When I say it so
that sooner or later it

actually just happens
to actually where I just

come on and go, hey,
what up, beef nation?

How am I chung stealing?

After the mind of the
Academy, shot my big

chest, whether best
is a philosophy, drinking

a clutch, brings rubber skills like a soccer
punch, won’t count to see how my feet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ginned Up Hearing

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)