Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI TECH SCROLL: Why is TikTok broken for Americans? Inside the first week of the TikTok USDS joint venture

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MINI TECH SCROLL: Why is TikTok broken for Americans? Inside the first week of the TikTok USDS joint venture · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  Hey everyone, and welcome to Mini scroll, the daily Internet
• 0:03
  culture podcast bring you the biggest stories from social
• 0:05
  media, the creator economy and the digital space every Monday
• 0:09
  through Thursday and sometimes Fridays.
• 0:11
  My name is Annabelle and I'm your Wednesday mini tech scroll
• 0:15
  host and also the deputy editor of Australian youth digital
• 0:18
  media brand Centennial World. Welcome back to mini Tech
• 0:22
  scroll. I just need to say before we get
• 0:24
  into this episode, this is a TikTok only episode.
• 0:28
  We had one last that was all about the US TikTok ban, and it
• 0:33
  appears the time has come once again where there's just so much
• 0:37
  TikTok news related to US TikTok that we simply have no time to
• 0:43
  cover any other story. So if you aren't interested in
• 0:47
  everything going on with TikTok in the US this week, definitely
• 0:51
  come back next week because hopefully we will get back to
• 0:54
  our regular scheduled programming.
• 0:57
  But before we get into the breakdown, Please remember to
• 1:00
  rate, review and subscribe. And yes, let's just get into it
• 1:04
  because we have a lot to get through.
• 1:06
  So there are definitely multiple concurrent stories all happening
• 1:11
  at the same time. So I'm really going to do my
• 1:13
  best to try and break it down for you in a succinct and
• 1:17
  comprehensive way. But of course, before we begin,
• 1:21
  I just want to put a preface out there that we are obviously not
• 1:23
  based in the US. My TikTok account is not AUS
• 1:27
  TikTok account. So a lot of the issues that are
• 1:30
  being reported and discussed aren't necessarily what we are
• 1:34
  experiencing right now down in Australia.
• 1:36
  So just putting that out there for your knowledge.
• 1:40
  Let's take it back to the end of last week when it was officially
• 1:44
  announced that the Trump administration had closed the
• 1:46
  deal with TikTok that would allow US to control their own
• 1:50
  version of the platform. We have spoken about this many
• 1:53
  times. And when I say many times, the
• 1:56
  TikTok ban in the US has become a main character in the mini
• 2:01
  tech scrolls cinematic universe. It came up at least once a month
• 2:05
  last year, it feels like. And the more it came up, the
• 2:08
  more I feel like I was visibly annoyed that I had to talk about
• 2:12
  it simply because it just always came up and I wanted to report
• 2:15
  on something new. But of course, we cannot ignore
• 2:18
  the news. So here we are.
• 2:19
  Once again, if you are a new listener, I will give some
• 2:23
  context here, but it's not going to be nearly as much context as
• 2:26
  I've given in the past. So feel free to check out
• 2:29
  previous episodes. But basically, this new deal
• 2:32
  that the Trump administration has struck with TikTok and Bite
• 2:36
  Dance all came out of the TikTok ban legislation that had passed
• 2:40
  in April 2024 under the Biden administration.
• 2:43
  So this legislation essentially banned TikTok from operating in
• 2:47
  the US unless a deal was struck for a US approved buyer or
• 2:51
  buyers to purchase the app. And Bite Dance, which is TikTok
• 2:55
  Chinese own parent company, which I'm sure we all know
• 2:58
  divested. And this was all positioned out
• 3:01
  of security concerns about what Bite Dance and TikTok could
• 3:05
  glean about American uses. And while it was positioned as a
• 3:09
  national security issue, many people have pushed back on that,
• 3:13
  saying that other big tech companies in the United States
• 3:16
  do the exact same thing with their user data.
• 3:18
  And on top of this, there are a lot of questions about free
• 3:21
  speech and censorship and what would happen if TikTok was
• 3:24
  banned in the US. But we will get into more of
• 3:27
  that discussion later. So after years of push and pull
• 3:30
  negotiations between the US government and Byte Dance, in
• 3:34
  the second-half of last year, we started to get glimpses of what
• 3:37
  was to come. So in July we reported on a
• 3:41
  scoop from The Information claiming that there would be a
• 3:44
  new TikTok for US based users ahead of a potential sale.
• 3:49
  And then around September October, it was revealed that a
• 3:52
  consortium of US investors would be leading the new US venture.
• 3:57
  And this list of US investors seemed very curated, with
• 4:02
  virtually all of them aligning with MAGA or Donald Trump's
• 4:06
  political agenda in one way or another.
• 4:08
  So as I've already mentioned, last week it was announced that
• 4:11
  a deal had officially been reached, as U.S.
• 4:14
  President Donald Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, which is
• 4:18
  his social media app. Quote, I am so happy to have
• 4:21
  helped in saving TikTok. It will now be owned by a group
• 4:24
  of Great American patriots and investors, the biggest in the
• 4:27
  world, and will be an important voice.
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  Along with other factors. It was responsible for my doing
• 4:33
  so well with the youth vote in the 2024 presidential election.
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  I only hope that long into the future I will be remembered by
• 4:40
  those who use and love TikTok. Firstly, I just need to say I'm
• 4:44
  sorry if I sounded uncomfortable reading that.
• 4:46
  That was extremely difficult for me to read simply because of the
• 4:50
  cadence that is written in. I found it really difficult, but
• 4:55
  as far as what he said in that announcement, this alludes to
• 4:59
  something that I have been saying for ages.
• 5:01
  I'm pretty sure if you went back to the episode I did exclusively
• 5:05
  on TikTok last year, I would have said a similar thing.
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  Trump initially was the person who was leading the coals for a
• 5:12
  TikTok ban back in 2020. And I think this announcement
• 5:15
  shows part of the reason why he changed his tune to help TikTok,
• 5:19
  and that was simply because it helped him win the election.
• 5:23
  And when something benefits him or someone is nice to Trump, he
• 5:27
  tends to change his perception of that person or platform in
• 5:31
  this case. So this is a pattern of
• 5:33
  behaviour that we do tend to stay with him often and that is
• 5:38
  why I was never fully convinced that TikTok would be banned in
• 5:42
  the US. On January 23rd, TikTok also
• 5:45
  released a statement announcing the joint venture had been
• 5:48
  reached and offered a little bit more detail, including that
• 5:51
  quote. TikTok USDS joint venture has
• 5:55
  three managing investors, Silver Lake, Oracle and MGX, each
• 6:00
  holding 15%. And we have spoken about this in
• 6:02
  a previous episode because there were a lot of leaks around the
• 6:05
  potential investors. But for those who weren't here
• 6:09
  for that, this is a little bit more context on who and what
• 6:13
  these companies are. So Oracle Cloud Services have
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  been storing US TikTok dollar since 2020 at this point.
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  And Larry Ellis Anderson is a Co founder of Oracle and also the
• 6:24
  Chief technology Officer and he is a significant Trump supporter
• 6:28
  for reference. Next is Silverlake, which is a
• 6:31
  private equity company. And lastly is MGX, which is a
• 6:35
  Abu Dhabi state owned tech investment firm, which I've
• 6:38
  noted before is kind of interesting considering there's
• 6:41
  a lot of concerned around foreign data collection of
• 6:44
  users. And obviously that is what led
• 6:47
  to the TikTok ban in the 1st place.
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  So many commentators slash Internet users have noted that
• 6:54
  it feels perhaps hypocritical that another foreign entity is
• 6:58
  now involved. But Speaking of foreign entities
• 7:00
  by Dance will still hold a 19.9% stake in the company, which is
• 7:05
  in line with the divest or ban law that went into effect
• 7:09
  initially. With this new leadership, the
• 7:12
  joint venture will quote, retrain, test, and update the
• 7:16
  content recommendation algorithm on US user data.
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  Part of the statement from TikTok and how this is working
• 7:22
  is that Byte Dance is leasing the algorithm to the US venture.
• 7:26
  Because the algorithm was the sticky point of negotiation,
• 7:29
  Byte Dance didn't want to sell it.
• 7:31
  But the US didn't want Byte Dance necessarily have access.
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  So through Byte Dance leasing the algorithm to this US version
• 7:38
  of TikTok, This is why a retraining process will take
• 7:43
  place. And according to American users,
• 7:45
  things have already shifted on the app.
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  Which obviously might seem quite quick.
• 7:50
  But as Ryan Broderick wrote in a recent edition of the Garbage
• 7:54
  Day newsletter quote, normally I would say that it would take a
• 7:57
  considerable amount of time to completely overhaul the
• 8:00
  algorithm for a site like Tiktok.
• 8:02
  But now that we've seen how fast X formally Twitter changes due
• 8:05
  to the whims of its own mad king Elon Musk, I wouldn't say it's
• 8:09
  totally impossible. And that brings us to the next
• 8:12
  part of the story of everything going on with Tiktok.
• 8:16
  And Lauren alluded to this yesterday, but there have been
• 8:19
  many calls from US based Tiktok uses both celebrities and
• 8:23
  regular people alleging that a kind censorship has begun on the
• 8:27
  platform. Of course, censorship on TikTok
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  or suppression or being shadow banned, quote UN quote is not
• 8:35
  new. That is why many people have
• 8:38
  been speaking in algo speak for years now.
• 8:41
  But this seems to be different according to these users.
• 8:45
  For instance, Billie Eilish famously took to Instagram with
• 8:48
  a video posted by her brother which basically denounced
• 8:52
  everything horrible that has been happening in the US with
• 8:55
  ice writing quote. TikTok is silencing people by
• 8:58
  the way. And she showed a screenshot of
• 9:01
  Phineas's videos and how it had just over 100 likes, which is
• 9:04
  not the usual amount of engagement that a video from
• 9:08
  someone of Phineas's celebrity, I guess, would get on TikTok.
• 9:14
  Aside from Billy, actress and comedian Megan Stolter also
• 9:17
  shared that she would be deleting TikTok considering
• 9:19
  these recent developments, as she wrote on her Instagram story
• 9:23
  quote. Hi, so today I'll be downloading
• 9:25
  my videos and deleting my TikTok page.
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  TikTok is under new ownership and we are being completely
• 9:31
  censored and monitored. I'm unable to upload anything
• 9:34
  about ICE even after I tried to trick the page by making it look
• 9:37
  like a comedy video. Let's delete the app Love you.
• 9:40
  So those are just two examples, but I have seen countless people
• 9:44
  go to different platforms questioning why their content
• 9:46
  isn't getting views or being uploaded.
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  I've even seen people sharing other topics that are being
• 9:52
  seemingly suppressed, including Epstein, which is of course a
• 9:56
  sore point for Trump and his allies at the moment.
• 9:59
  I should add here though that The Verge did do some
• 10:02
  investigation about whether Epstein was actually being
• 10:05
  suppressed, noting that the situation does seem to be a
• 10:09
  little bit more complicated. As Richard Lawler writes quote,
• 10:12
  testing it from our end showed that Tik Tok's messaging feature
• 10:16
  bans many innocuous single word messages like test using the
• 10:20
  convicted sex offenders name in a sentence, however goes through
• 10:23
  unbanned. This is obviously something that
• 10:25
  we can't confirm or deny, and I doubt it's something that the
• 10:29
  platform would confirm or deny either that the audience would
• 10:33
  take as truth. I will say that ever since the
• 10:36
  rumored investors were announced, there has been
• 10:40
  significant concern about the freedom of speech on a platform
• 10:43
  led by this group of investors of a specific political leaning.
• 10:46
  So it seems, and I remember posing, whether this is a way to
• 10:50
  further isolate American users from global discourse and
• 10:54
  perceptions going into this new era of TikTok.
• 10:57
  That is definitely something that is on people's minds.
• 11:00
  While some TikTok users are convinced that we are witnessing
• 11:04
  censorship in real time, it does seem to have coincided with an
• 11:09
  alleged power outage of a data centre, one that has caused a
• 11:14
  whole host of issues on the platform.
• 11:16
  A series of updates have been posted on the newly created X
• 11:20
  account for the joint venture, as one post shared yesterday.
• 11:23
  Read Quote Since yesterday, we've been working to restore
• 11:26
  our services following a power outage at a U.S. data center,
• 11:29
  impacting TikTok and other apps we operate.
• 11:32
  We're working with our data center partner to stabilize our
• 11:35
  service. We're sorry for the disruption
• 11:37
  and hope to resolve it soon. Another post ended up noting
• 11:40
  some of the bugs slash glitches users could be facing, which
• 11:44
  included slower load times, creator seeing 0 views or less
• 11:48
  views or likes on their content, as well as timed out requests.
• 11:52
  A lot of users were still skeptical about this reasoning,
• 11:55
  alleging that certain topics, including videos about ice, were
• 11:59
  disproportionately affected. And I do do feel like for
• 12:03
  something like this, the best thing for TikTok to probably do
• 12:08
  would be to release some kind of public deep dive into everything
• 12:12
  that went wrong. Because that would be the way I
• 12:16
  guess, to maybe regain trust, if that's even possible with the
• 12:19
  users. So I guess we'll win see how
• 12:22
  much detail they end up giving on this data center outage.
• 12:26
  But the latest update on the glitch was shared at 10:40
• 12:30
  Eastern Time, and it read quote. We've made significant progress
• 12:34
  in recovering our US infrastructure with our U.S.
• 12:37
  data center partner. However, the US user experience
• 12:40
  may still have some technical issues, including when posting
• 12:43
  new content. We're committed to bringing
• 12:45
  Tiktok back to its full capacity as soon as possible.
• 12:48
  We'll continue to provide updates.
• 12:50
  Thank you for your patience. I can definitely understand that
• 12:52
  we have to give the platform some time to really understand
• 12:56
  how this new leadership will change Tiktok.
• 13:00
  But there have already been some other developments that have
• 13:03
  immediately turned people off and sparked panic.
• 13:06
  So this is like, I guess the third part of this story, but
• 13:10
  TikTok has reportedly updated its privacy policy where
• 13:13
  American users started seeing a pop up message last week asking
• 13:17
  them to agree to new terms. There has been a lot of
• 13:21
  discourse on social media pointing to the language in the
• 13:24
  new privacy policy, specifically that TikTok can collect
• 13:28
  sensitive information if you do agree to it, which might include
• 13:31
  a user's quote, sexual life or sexual orientation status as
• 13:35
  transgender on non binary citizenship or immigration
• 13:39
  status. That is of course confronting to
• 13:42
  read, especially in the current political climate in the United
• 13:46
  States between the ICE raids that have been happening and of
• 13:49
  course the increasing anti transgender policies and
• 13:52
  rhetoric that have emerged over the past few years.
• 13:55
  But it also should be noted that this language isn't new.
• 13:59
  As Sarah Perez reports for TechCrunch quote, the same
• 14:03
  language appeared in Tik Tok's privacy policy before the
• 14:06
  ownership deal closed. And it's primarily there to
• 14:09
  comply with state privacy laws like California's Consumer
• 14:13
  Privacy Act, which requires companies to agree to disclose
• 14:16
  to consumers what sensitive information is collected.
• 14:20
  Similar disclosures appear in other social media apps
• 14:23
  policies. I did double check this by the
• 14:25
  way, And in an older version of the privacy policy that you can
• 14:29
  access through the Wayback Machine, you can see that this
• 14:33
  language is still there and the version that I saw was from
• 14:37
  2024, so clearly before the new leadership took their role.
• 14:42
  Although there have been other changes to the privacy policy
• 14:46
  that have sparked concern, including the fact that TikTok
• 14:48
  will now be tracking precise GPS derived location data of its
• 14:53
  users. They'll also be collecting slash
• 14:55
  storing AI interactions as well as expanding its advertising
• 15:00
  policies, which will basically allow the platform to target US
• 15:04
  users with relevant ads outside of TikTok.
• 15:06
  Why? It actually published a really
• 15:08
  good piece just comparing the language before and after the
• 15:11
  privacy policy update. So I will link that if you want
• 15:15
  to see the differences. As you probably would have
• 15:18
  expected, all of these changes and developments have led to
• 15:22
  businesses and users starting to boycott this new iteration of
• 15:27
  TikTok, and with that, they are moving to various competitors.
• 15:31
  According to data reported by CNBC from the market
• 15:35
  intelligence firm Sensor Tower, Tiktok users have been deleting
• 15:39
  the app, or uninstalling the app, I should say, at
• 15:42
  significantly high rates since the US operation begun.
• 15:45
  As the article notes quote, the daily average of US users
• 15:49
  deleting the Tiktok app has increased nearly 150% over the
• 15:53
  past five days compared to the previous three months.
• 15:56
  So that is definitely significant, I would say.
• 15:58
  And there have been a couple of platforms that US users seem to
• 16:02
  be turning to, with one called Up Scrolled seemingly being the
• 16:06
  most popular. It actually isn't exactly like
• 16:08
  TikTok like it. Its interface is not like a for
• 16:11
  you page. It feels a little bit closer to
• 16:13
  Twitter where you can post text posts, videos or photos.
• 16:18
  And it's actually an Australian platform, which I thought was
• 16:20
  interesting and was founded by a man named Isam Hijazi.
• 16:24
  So since Up Scrolled has started to gain traction, I have seen
• 16:28
  that a couple high profile figures have joined, including
• 16:31
  Internet culture journalist tech journalist Taylor Lorenz.
• 16:34
  But the app still does feel very new and is definitely working to
• 16:38
  manage the influx of new users on other social media platforms.
• 16:43
  The Up Scroll team has repeatedly asked users to quote
• 16:46
  Bear with us as they adjust, which is definitely fair because
• 16:49
  some crazy stats have emerged about how many people have
• 16:52
  turned to Up Scrolled in just the past week.
• 16:55
  Tech Crunch reported that Up Scrolls daily installs increased
• 16:59
  by 2850% since Thursday last week, and it's currently sitting
• 17:04
  at roughly around 140,000 downloads all up.
• 17:07
  So that is quite a lot of people moving to the app.
• 17:10
  But there are some other apps I've seen it gaining traction,
• 17:12
  including one called Skylight, which is reportedly built on
• 17:16
  open source technology. And since the US TikTok deal has
• 17:20
  been finalized, the platform has reportedly reached 380,000
• 17:24
  users. Another one I've seen people
• 17:27
  talk about is Monet, I believe, which is an European
• 17:31
  alternative. But All in all, I would say that
• 17:33
  up scrolled is the app that people are talking about the
• 17:36
  most. So that brings us to a couple of
• 17:40
  questions like what does this all mean?
• 17:42
  What can we take away from this? What can we expect from this US
• 17:46
  version of TikTok moving forward?
• 17:48
  And I am always cautious of making predictions, especially
• 17:53
  at this point because it is so early to say what will happen.
• 17:57
  But I think the first question here is will users actually
• 18:02
  continue to use these alternative platforms?
• 18:05
  This is of course not the first time that there has been a mass
• 18:08
  exodus or conversation around US TikTok.
• 18:11
  And the obvious point of comparison is Red Note, which is
• 18:15
  the Chinese owned app that many US users turn to when TikTok
• 18:19
  went dark at the beginning of last year.
• 18:22
  Of course, the move to Red Note didn't actually last very long
• 18:26
  because when TikTok came back online, many users returned.
• 18:30
  I will say though, this does feel like a very different
• 18:33
  situation to the Red Note situation.
• 18:35
  But I have always been quite skeptical of 1 singular app
• 18:40
  completely replacing TikTok because that is a massive ask.
• 18:43
  If you think about how many features TikTok offers, the
• 18:46
  amount of content on there, the amount of subcultures on there,
• 18:49
  I think it's extremely difficult to replicate on another app.
• 18:53
  But aside from TikTok specifically, I think there are
• 18:56
  two issues with this idea of one app replacing TikTok.
• 19:01
  The 1st is that I think it's quite difficult to actually
• 19:04
  convince users to leave one platform for another.
• 19:06
  I will say though, that the change leadership might be
• 19:10
  enough for a lot of TikTok users because TikTok does via somewhat
• 19:15
  left wing compared to other major social media platforms.
• 19:18
  And I have cited this data before, But the Pew Research
• 19:24
  Center did research in 2024 into news fluences and found that
• 19:28
  TikTok was the only platform where left-leaning political
• 19:31
  ideology surpassed its right wing counterpart among these
• 19:34
  kinds of creators. And I think that is kind of
• 19:36
  emblematic of the platform at large.
• 19:39
  And obviously this new ownership doesn't necessarily align with
• 19:44
  these values. But the second thing that makes
• 19:46
  it really hard for this platform switch is that even when users
• 19:49
  are convinced to leave a platform, the new app has to
• 19:53
  develop a culture that resonates with these users and makes it
• 19:57
  enjoyable and fun to use. And I think that is where it's
• 20:01
  really difficult. I think we've seen that a little
• 20:03
  bit with Blue Sky and X, for example, because while a lot of
• 20:06
  people have boycotted X, Blue Sky hasn't really.
• 20:10
  Managed to develop its own kind of culture, but I also think I
• 20:13
  guess that comes with time. I should add that I don't know
• 20:18
  how helpful it is to make the tick Tock and X comparison even
• 20:22
  though I just did it because while Twitter was influential, I
• 20:26
  don't think it ever had the same stronghold that TikTok does have
• 20:29
  on Internet culture and content consumption.
• 20:32
  Twitter always felt a little bit more for hard news or specific
• 20:37
  subcultures and also the content format is different so I just
• 20:41
  think it manifests differently. So even though that comparison
• 20:44
  might not be entirely helpful, I do think it's probably 1 of the
• 20:47
  closest ones that we have. I feel like I'm just
• 20:49
  contradicting myself left right and center right now.
• 20:51
  Aside from this, I do think there is one part of the
• 20:54
  conversation that's often missed about people actually using
• 20:57
  these alternative platforms and it is a question of logistics.
• 21:02
  Can these new apps handle the amount of content and users that
• 21:06
  may flock to them from TikTok? I mean, we're already seeing up
• 21:09
  scrolled struggle with that and the user experience would
• 21:12
  definitely play a role in whether or not these users stick
• 21:15
  around. And I think my last point in
• 21:17
  this ramble about the likelihood of people continuing to use
• 21:21
  these alternative platforms is that this has come at quite a
• 21:25
  unique time culturally where the pursuit of being chronically
• 21:28
  offline or at least performing it to your followers is at an
• 21:33
  all time high with the going analogue trend.
• 21:36
  And if you want more discourse on this, check out the deep dive
• 21:39
  coming on Friday. That is all I will say on that
• 21:41
  because this is literally what we're covering in the deep dive
• 21:44
  and we worked hard, so please tune in.
• 21:48
  But All in all, whether people continue to use these new
• 21:51
  platforms does depend on how the new US TikTok operates and what
• 21:56
  the algorithm prioritizes, of course.
• 21:59
  And between the power outage and all the glitches, I do think it
• 22:03
  is difficult to say for sure that the type of content that is
• 22:06
  allegedly being suppressed is because of the new owners or if
• 22:10
  content is just kind of being suppressed across the board at
• 22:12
  this moment in time. However, do I think there is a
• 22:15
  chance of this political censorship actually happening
• 22:19
  down the line? Sure.
• 22:20
  And I've said this before, especially when we can set up
• 22:22
  the way the current US administration values and uses
• 22:26
  social media. They're not necessarily open two
• 22:29
  differences of opinion or messaging that may be misaligned
• 22:33
  with their political agenda. So it's easy to see how that
• 22:37
  would trickle down to allies. And if that does turn out to be
• 22:41
  the case, Internet culture and politics is going to change as
• 22:45
  we know it, especially when we consider how much of an engine
• 22:48
  TikTok has been, especially for youth audiences since 2020.
• 22:52
  So I guess we're just going to have to stay tuned.
• 22:54
  I'm definitely curious to hear what you guys think of all this,
• 22:57
  whether you're based in the US or not because I just gave a lot
• 23:01
  of unsolicited commentary considering I'm not based in the
• 23:04
  US, but that is everything for mini tech scroll today.
• 23:07
  I really hope you guys enjoyed. Lauren will speak to you guys
• 23:11
  tomorrow. And like I mentioned at the top
• 23:13
  of the episode, hopefully next week we will be back for a
• 23:17
  regular mini tech episode of different stories.
• 23:21
  Thanks for listening. Bye.
• 23:22
  Centennial World Podcast Network operates on Gadigal land.
• 23:25
  We would like to acknowledge the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, the
• 23:28
  traditional custodians of this land, and pay our respects to
• 23:31
  elders both past and present.