TikTok, Boom. (2022) Movie Script

TikTok was a new app.

I knew millions of people

were downloading it by the day.

And I just thought,

"I want to post on a platform

where younger

generations are."

Once I got into junior year

of high school,

I was like, "Okay,

I'll give TikTok a try."

I remember when I started

seeing views pile up

in the thousands,

and hundred-thousands.

I didn't know

I had this much power

just because I've been

putting my voice on an app.

On TikTok,

anything can happen.

♪ ♪

♪ Watermelon sugar high ♪

♪ Watermelon sugar

high ♪

♪ Watermelon sugar ♪

♪ Dream, dream, uh ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Listen to me now ♪

♪ ♪

I guess I'm on TikTok now.

TikTok has

been downloaded

more than two billion times,

more than any app ever.

I think TikTok

right now is probably

on the cutting edge

of all social media...

and it is becoming

a world onto itself

for a lot of people,

especially young people.

♪ ♪

TikTok is

the first Chinese app

to threaten the dominance

of Silicon Valley.

It's

a cyber security story.

It's an algorithm story.

It's a biased story.

It's a geopolitical story.

...TikTok.

We may be banning TikTok.

It was bizarre

why when suddenly this

kind of a fun

little kids app,

become wrapped up

in this huge

geopolitical storm

between the US and China

that was only

getting hotter.

Fix your mirrors.

Can I drive?

Can you drive?

So my family's

from Afghanistan.

They were

just very grateful

because they could finally

come here.

They were just amazed

by the privileges

that were being brought

to them.

You didn't--you didn't

use your signal there.

I did.

Oh, I thought I did.

My parents,

their dreams of America

were flourishing

before 9/11,

and then once those planes

hit the towers,

their dreams

were shattered too,

because it was as if they

were responsible for that.

♪ ♪

Growing up

as an Afghan-American,

it was really rough.

I'll just have

a small amount.

Yesterday, he was teaching me

how to drive.

Every five seconds,

"Don't scratch my rims.

Don't scratch my rims."

Oh, my God.

I'm not gonna scratch your rims.

I know how to drive.

The only times

where I feel like I belong

is with my family.

My cousins, my brother...

I--I feel like I have

a place with them,

because they understand

where I come from.

How'd you make it look pretty?

- Why?

- Like, it looks like

a Instagram picture.

We had a phase,

growing up

as children of refugees

in a country

that doesn't like refugees...

And my school

isn't diverse at all.

I don't feel

like I'm one of them.

I don't think my classmates

even think

that I'm one of them.

I got called a terrorist.

I got called Bin Laden.

I've been called

a part of the Taliban,

since I'm Afghan.

I've been called

all these things.

♪ ♪

And I always felt

like an outsider.

♪ ♪

My mom made these two.

I wore this dress on my TikTok.

I have gone viral

a few times.

It was my first time

posting on TikTok.

It was like 40,000 views

I've gotten on it.

And it was just me dancing

with my Afghan clothes on.

The response was like amazing

because through TikTok

I found

so many other Afghans,

and so many

other Afghan-Americans.

I never knew how big the

Afghan-American community was

'til I joined TikTok

and I've seen more people

accepting me for who I am.

I got so excited.

I really wanna be a part

of my community more

through TikTok.

♪ ♪

♪ Wipe, wipe,

wipe it down ♪

♪ Wipe, wipe ♪

TikTok is an app

that's completely different

than any other type

of social media

or entertainment platform

that we've ever seen before.

TikTok was the first platform

to really popularise

high quality vertical

video content,

which just makes it

so easy to consume.

♪ ♪

The "For You" page

is completely,

individually tailored to you,

based on the data

that they gather about you.

I mean, I cannot explain

how fantastic

this algorithm is

at delivering you exactly

what you didn't even know

that you wanted.

♪ ♪

What TikTok does so well

is discovery,

it allows you to drill down

on the whole internet,

and find these really

specific groups of people

that resonate with you.

♪ ♪

It's just any kind of niche,

subculture or community

where you can find creators

that are in that niche.

People just get discovered

much faster,

they blow up much faster,

and it's just...

everything goes ten times

more viral than it would

on any other social app.

It's remaking

the food landscape,

the fashion landscape...

People learning on TikTok...

It's hard to find an industry

that TikTok hasn't infiltrated

or disrupted.

TikTok

has captured the attention

of the world's

most lucrative market,

young people.

And with it, the power

to reshape the future.

DJ Spencer in the home.

Mix.

My friend Scott

comes up to me,

and he goes, "Hey, man,

I wanna show you something

you've never heard before."

And I was like, "What did you

just do right now?"

Like, "Is this a trick?

Is this a game?" Like...

And he was like, "No, no, no,

dude, it's called beatboxing.

You make music

with your mouth."

And I'm like, "You are

doing that with your face?"

I was 15. I was a sophomore

in high school,

and I remember that moment

just being magic to me.

Like it was love

at first sound.

This is Spencer Polanco,

and this is what I do.

And I decided that night

I was gonna be a beatboxer.

But you can also imagine me

busting out of my room

just, you know,

wild Spencer...

full of excitement

in my eyes.

"Dad! Mom! I know what I wanna

do for the rest of my life.

I wanna be a beatboxer."

And then they looked at me

like I was crazy.

♪ Spencer beatbox ♪

I grew up in New York City.

My father is from Ecuador,

and he came here

and found my mom.

My mom is first generation,

uh, Chinese family.

My father, uh...

He wanted me to be

a tennis player,

and my mom wanted me

to be a doctor.

And then when

I expressed something

they didn't understand,

which is beatboxing,

they were accepting,

but confused,

and then unaccepting

and even more confused.

I--I struggled

with a little bit of anxiety

and depression

when I was in college.

I had to make a decision,

and I said no

to formal education.

And I said yes

to beatboxing.

I mean, I was

a struggling artist.

I was a...

typical artist that was

I was performing

in the streets

of New York City.

I was in the subways,

busking...

Some days, you make $20

working all day.

When I started TikTok,

I had to look at myself

in the mirror,

and say, "If this isn't

gonna happen right now,

it's not gonna happen."

Okay, this is

the first viral video.

Look at my hair.

I didn't even, like,

fix my hair for this video.

And that was

a six-second video.

I woke up the next day

and it had, like,

three million views.

And I was just

genuinely confused.

I was like, "Oh, my God.

They like me."

I look at it and I'm like,

"There's something here."

So I decided to post more,

and I decided to do

everything single idea

I possibly could."

TikTok topping Facebook

to become the world's

most downloaded app.

TikTok is absolutely massive.

Last year,

they reported they have

over two billion users,

with almost a billion

monthly active users.

People spend more time

on TikTok per day

than Facebook, Snapchat,

Instagram, YouTube.

Facebook is absolutely

desperate right now

to regain any semblance

of relevance,

which they've lost

quite a while ago.

In many areas,

we're behind our competitors.

The fastest growing app

is TikTok.

The elephant in the room,

of course,

is the fact that TikTok

is owned by ByteDance,

a Chinese company.

And it's the first time

we've seen a huge Chinese

consumer tech company

come in and dominate

the American market.

♪ ♪

So there was this guy

from China

named Zhang Yiming.

He worked for a number

of startups

before starting up

his own company,

a company called ByteDance.

♪ ♪

The thing that struck me

the most about TikTok

was just how calculated

their founders were

from the very beginning

about their goal,

which was to become this kind

of global force,

and really, like, penetrate

the, you know, the zeitgeist

of the US.

♪ ♪

The story is going to sound

very similar

to many Silicon Valley

entrepreneurs.

Zhang Yiming came

from a middle class family.

And he basically

just had this dream

that he was going to make

something important of himself.

♪ ♪

So, when the iPhone came out,

in the late 2000s,

he was just really

blown away by the fact

that you could have

a full computing device,

small enough to fit

in your pocket,

and he was just convinced

mobile internet

was going to be the next

once in a lifetime opportunity

that you'd read about

in history books,

and he was determined

to take advantage

of this big wave.

♪ ♪

They started

in an apartment,

which is very common

in Chinese...

sort of internet

entrepreneurship lore.

About 2015 or so,

ByteDance was doing

experiments with video,

and Yiming had

this sort of strange idea

about recommendation engines

which serves you content

that it thinks you'd be

interested in.

So ByteDance bought Duoyin.

♪ ♪

Within six months

after launch

it hit this inflection point.

Somehow it just became viral.

Yo, what's going on?

Dude, it is so hot.

Dude, why don't

you just go get some

Ben & Jerry's ice cream?

People pay me to put

their product in my videos.

It's--it's--it's crazy.

These are from this week.

They're so many.

Look.

I get, like, clothes

from, like, all different

major brands.

Look at that.

After the success

of Douyin in China,

a lip-synch app

already popular

with kids and young teens

in the US.

And merged them,

rebranding the app

as TikTok.

One thing Zhang Yiming

did was to create

two different products.

Duoyin was

for the Chinese market,

and it was a Chinese app,

and TikTok was

for the global market.

And what that meant

was that he could keep

the Chinese app

walled off in China,

with Chinese rules,

and then keep TikTok

for the rest of the globe.

TikTok was,

all of the sudden,

this huge success

from day one.

TikTok has done

what no other Chinese-made app

has done before.

It's cracked

the international market,

and become a global sensation.

TikTok is

now available

in 154 countries

and 75 languages,

rivalling Silicon Valley's

biggest apps.

TikTok and its owner ByteDance

were the first Chinese

social media company

to really provide

a wake-up call

to Facebook, Google,

Amazon, and others,

that it's not just

about Silicone Valley

bringing technology

to the world,

but, really,

that China's a real force

to be reckoned with.

There's sort

of this perception

that there was too much

of a cultural difference

between China

and the rest of the world

and that Chinese companies

didn't know to build

globally successful

social media.

I think TikTok's completely

blown that out of water.

The world we all grew up in

was one where America

dominated culturally,

where it dominated

technologically,

and the world that we

would end up retiring in

would probably be one

where China dominates

in most of those areas.

Power's shifting

to China rapidly.

And ByteDance and the story

of TikTok is part of that.

- Hi.

- How are you?

- Good.

So what are you gonna do?

I wanna play with...

adding just, like,

more dimension

to my hair,

it's, like, a little flat...

Yes.

I think

that it's scary

to be the first generation,

to have

our entire lives documented.

♪ ♪

Every action, you know,

every haircut,

every look change...

it's on people's radars.

You know, I work a job

where so much of it

is, like, looking...

being looked at, or...

- Yeah.

- Looking at myself, honestly.

Big deal.

So, I'm influencer

and content creation work,

so I went viral

for the first time,

uh, when I was 16 years old

for a confrontation

with my Senator.

Republican Senator Jeff Flake

held a town hall

in Mesa, Arizona last night,

and got an earful

from 16-year-old activist

Deja Foxx.

Take a look.

So I'm a young woman,

and you're a middle-aged man.

- I'm a person of colour...

- Ouch.

...and you're white.

Uhm, I come from a background

of poverty and I didn't

always have parents

to guide me through life.

You come from privilege.

Why would you deny me

the American Dream?

I woke up

the next morning,

and 18 million people

had seen that video.

And I had a request

to my email to go live on CNN.

I can't sit idly by

while women like me

are countlessly and constantly

being ignored

on Capitol Hill.

And I suddenly realised

that all those things

I've been putting

on social

that I thought were only

going to the people

who knew me, overnight

I could be visible

to people

that I will never know.

♪ ♪

The internet connected me

to the entire world.

TikTok is a blowup overnight

kind of place.

On any platform where you can

get extreme reach,

you open yourself up

to benefits, right?

larger followings,

more views,

more attention.

You must open yourself up

to more hate,

to people who are going

to tear you down,

tear you apart,

pick at you...

I live in a pretty constant

state of anxiety.

I don't know what it's like

to live in a world

where I'm not

being perceived always.

And it's this tug of war

between...

that's kind of what I want,

and it's kind of the thing

I fear the most.

I think there is a really

interesting line

between what it means

to be empowered

by your sexuality,

versus being exploited

by it online.

I definitely think

that women are seeing

larger followings,

more attention,

from the ways that they're

being sexualised online.

You can be a bad bitch

in a bikini

and a boss bitch

in a blazer.

Do both.

The posts where I'm showing

more skin do better.

But I also question

why that is.

If we think that these platforms

really are just showing us

the most popular content,

without really interrogating

why we're seeing

what we're seeing.

That's dangerous.

There is so much mystery

to the algorithm.

The algorithm.

Like, what does that even mean?

When I call your name

I shall place the sorting hat

on your head...

and you'll be sorted

in your Houses.

I refer to TikTok

as a sorting hat,

in reference

to the sorting hat

from "Harry Potter."

When the kids show up

at Hogwarts,

there's this magical

sorting hat

that sorts them into one

of the four schools.

TikTok's recommendation

algorithm serves

as that type

of sorting hat.

It sorts its users

into different audiences,

then it sorts videos

into different clusters

that appeal

to different audiences.

Most apps, like Facebook,

Twitter, Instagram

you actually have to follow

a lot of accounts,

or other people,

or people you know.

TikTok is very different,

in that, even if you

didn't follow anybody,

you would over time,

just by using the app,

get a very personalised

entertainment experience

for yourself.

Is anyone else, like,

a little weirded out

about how specific TikTok's

algorithm gets

for the "For You" page.

The "For You" page

on TikTok is the default

that the app opens into.

On the one hand, it has

a bunch of attributes

about the video.

It has the song in it.

It has a dog.

And the other, it has a bunch

of attributes about you,

you're this age,

you live here,

those are contextual clues

to feed their algorithm

to determine

what your tastes are.

My TikTok algorithm

is just like,

"You have ADHD,

you have BPD,

you're depressed."

When you're looking

at each video

on the "For You" page,

TikTok, the app,

is looking at how we react

to that video.

The algorithm starts

to become smarter

and just off of

these long sessions

where you're addictively

scrolling through videos.

And then adjust what videos

it shows you in the future.

And over time, it builds

almost a fingerprint

of your tastes.

I'm talking, like,

I was just thinking about

making a peanut butter

and jelly sandwich,

and then, out of nowhere,

someone is making

a peanut butter and jelly

on my "For You" page.

But lately, I kid you not,

it hasn't been things

that I Google or I talk about,

it's been thoughts.

Are any other girls, like,

kind of aggravated

that it took more

than 20 years to figure out

we were bisexual, but

it took my TikTok algorithm

like 37 seconds?

TikTok is just

the latest manifestation

of the power that comes

from connecting

billions of people in

the world with really powerful

machine learning

recommendation algorithms.

The creator economy

is the fastest growing type

of small business, with more

than 50 million people

around the world

who consider themselves

to be Content Creators.

♪ ♪

All the biggest

brands, they wanna do TikTok

campaigns, because it has

the hype right now.

TikTok has just

really resonated

with this Gen-Z audience,

which is where

the most valuable users are.

We have brands poised

to spend over $15 billion

in the next year,

on influencer marketing alone.

Eyeballs bring money

and brands chase the eyeballs.

chase young users.

In less than a year,

you have almost 35 million

followers on TikTok.

Over two billion likes...

Billion. Wow.

TikTokers, they've

embraced that idea of being

the entrepreneur.

They're not just in it

to get famous,

they're also in it

to get rich and successful.

The social media

influencer market

is a multi-billion

dollar industry,

and some young people

are cashing in big time.

I mean, these

TikTokers are making more

in their first year

than a lot of huge YouTubers

have made throughout

the entire past decade.

Late 2019

was my first brand deal

and it was for Nike.

When I first told my parents

that I was doing something

for Nike, they were like,

"What? Nike?

Like Nike?"

The fact that anyone wants

to use beatboxing for anything

is the coolest thing

on Earth to me.

This is a doll made

for Little Caesar's.

Life-size.

Even got the hair.

I'm a beatboxer,

and I'm hanging out

at Jason Derulo's house,

like, "How did this happen?"

Like this is dope.

TikTok has made

music more fun.

When we talk about

revolutionising, you know,

an industry...

...that has existed

for so long by itself...

TikTok's taking away

that guardian, that little gate.

Now there's so many

independent artists,

especially coming from TikTok,

that have just, like,

cult following that'll

have people that believe

in them, being outside

of the industry.

It wasn't until I was on TV,

when I presented

at the

"Billboard Music Awards,"

that's when my parents,

they were like,

"All right, Spencer's

on TV now,

I don't know what to do

with this information."

♪ ♪

TikTok has also

completely upended

the talent industry

in Hollywood.

Hollywood people love TikTok,

because they're like,

"Great, more famous people,

more people to make us money."

These TikTokers are launching

their own brands.

You have a beauty line

coming out, right?

Think of Addison Rae,

right?

She's a hugely popular

TikToker.

She launched Item Beauty.

So you see a lot

of these young TikTokers

building already

multi-million dollar empires.

Someone like Bella Poarch

went viral for this, like,

lipsynching video,

where she's making

these funny

facial expressions.

♪ It's M to the B,

it's M to the B ♪

♪ ♪

She used that

to launch a pop star career.

I mean, she's had several

huge hit songs now.

Somebody like Lil Nas X

is also a good example,

somebody that really

leveraged the internet

to promote his own career.

♪ Oh, I'm gonna ride

'til I can't no more ♪

TikTok defines "Top 40."

If you go

to the Trending List

on Spotify,

the most viral hits,

it's all TikTok songs,

and it is a really crazy mix.

We saw Fleetwood Mac "Dreams",

you know, resurged,

because of a viral video.

♪ It's only right ♪

♪ That you should

play the way... ♪

The whole media

ecosystem has migrated

towards this

personality-driven

form of entertainment,

so often people think,

"Oh, I'm on Content Creators,

right?

That's some teenager

that's dancing".

No! Online influence

is influence.

And if you can make

an impact online,

you have the ability

to reshape the world.

I started realising

TikTok had power.

Even if it was for a comedy

or makeup.

Whatever I was posting,

people wanted to watch it.

And I was, like,

"Okay,

so anything's possible

on this app."

♪ ♪

Anyone can basically go viral

on this app.

♪ ♪

After joining TikTok,

I decided, like,

"Maybe I wanna make more

political-savvy videos,

and I got more--more views

on that.

Hi, if you, um, actually

think all lives matter,

I want you to speak up

about the kids in cages

at the border,

I want you to speak up

about the kids dying

in the Middle East.

I want you to speak out

about the child...

I first read about the Uyghurs

through social media

since I do follow

Muslim pages,

and try to keep up

with my community.

Across the Northwestern

province of Xinjiang,

an estimated one million

Chinese Muslims have vanished

into a vast network

of detention centres

that targets Uyghur Muslims.

I saw someone post a picture

of these Uyghurs,

Uyghur prisoners,

and when I did more research,

I found out

that this genocide

is happening in front of us,

and no one is

speaking about it.

♪ Okay, okay... ♪

It says, "News outlets

when innocent Muslims

"are getting murdered

every day

in the Middle East

and in China."

The next day,

after I posted that video,

I--I looked at my feed,

and I saw where

the post used to be,

it was no longer the image

of my face on there.

It was just

a black little box.

When I clicked on it,

it just would say,

"Video unavailable."

I was shocked at that time,

but once I found out

that TikTok is

a Beijing-owned app,

I was no longer shocked.

I found out how TikTok's

basically using our data,

using our information,

and using it

for their own benefit.

TikTok is a Beijing-owned app.

It has censored videos

that are against the CCP.

I don't know about you, guys,

but I wanna know

what TikTok's doing

with our information.

AI is--is hungry for data,

so the more data you have,

the more accurate

the AI becomes,

so in the age of AI,

uh, data's the new oil,

and China is

the new Saudi Arabia.

Your data is an asset

to a lot of companies.

Google and Amazon

and Facebook are so big,

and they have so much money

because they have

all of your data.

And there's a whole secondary

market for data,

called "Data Brokers."

And they're gathering

all of this data,

and they're selling it

to each other,

and it's really no different

than the stock market.

If a company can start

gathering that data,

thousands of points of data

a day,

from the time someone's five

until the time they're 18,

those companies,

when they sell that data,

they have a profile

that knows a child

way better

than a parent would.

And that is extremely valuable

to advertisers,

and to people who want

to persuade you

to do something you might

otherwise not want to do.

If social media is determining

and tracking you

in different ways,

and--and telling you

what your dreams

are going to be,

based on the ads

you're getting,

that impacts the kid's brain

and it impacts their goals.

There's a lot of harms

happening with these companies

that are--are based

in Northern California.

What's different

about TikTok is,

where is this data going?

TikTok is reportedly

under federal investigation.

The US Government

reportedly launching

a national security review

of the company's

data collection,

and censorship practices,

amid concerns that users

personal data

could be accessible

to foreign governments.

there's very little

transparency,

just because a tech company

says something...

and I'm not just

talking about TikTok.

We don't have to take the tech

company at its word.

And I think Facebook

is somewhat scared

of the quick rise of TikTok,

because all that data

that Facebook was getting

is now going to TikTok.

The Chinese, one of the few

markets where Facebook

is unavailable right now,

because of government censors...

While Facebook CEO,

Mark Zuckerberg,

appears to be trying bit by bit

to reenter the world's

largest internet population,

China.

Facebook was probably

the most aggressive

social media company

to try to get

into China,

because social media in China

had been blocked

for a number of years.

♪ ♪

Mark Zuckerberg is trying

to find a way

that they could exist

somehow in China.

And so he learned Mandarin.

He went to a number

of conferences,

where he could put himself

in front of Xi Jinping,

and speak

to Xi Jinping directly.

And he really was aggressive

in saying, you know,

"This is a huge market.

"How can we be

this global connector

for the world and not have

China be part of it?"

But it became clear to him

in the last few years

that it's not going to work.

And so he completely changed,

he completely had a 180

and he went,

uh, on the offensive.

A decade ago, almost all

of the major internet platforms

were American.

Today, six of the top ten

are Chinese.

He realised that,

"If I can't win over

"the Chinese market, then I'm

gonna make it harder for them

to win over my market

in the US."

Mark Zuckerberg

has reportedly called TikTok

"A threat to democracy."

What the Facebook CEO

failed to mention

is that he tried to purchase

TikTok's predecesor,

Zuckerberg's clearly

very concerned about TikTok,

because it's the most genuine

new competition

he's received for a long time.

I remember when Facebook was

the number one place on Earth.

My grandmother

doesn't even use Facebook.

She's too cool.

No, I'm kidding.

I posted a prank on my page,

and it has like

three million views right now.

- Oh!

- You know what?

Uh-huh.

Come here.

Yeah, yeah. Mm...

I think it's all

about how creative you are.

I mean, that's what TikTok

has taught me.

Eh!

- That was good.

- I like that one.

Content's easy

with you, Merrick.

My name is Merrick Hanna.

I am 16 years old.

When people think

of influencers...

I think they think

it's very leisurely. It's not.

- It's fast.

- Is that how it goes?

- Yeah, it's that fast.

- Why is it so fast?

- 'Cause it loops.

- Ah.

Yeah, so it seems like it's

longer when you watch it.

I don't think it needs

to be quite as fast

as you're suggesting.

Try to make it longer,

you're rushing so much.

To manage Merrick's career

at this point,

is definitely a full time job,

on top of my full time job.

Reading all the emails for him,

reading the contracts,

reading offers, replying,

the back and forth...

My dad helps a lot

with finding ideas,

because that

is a big part of it.

He'll find a trend

that he thinks I can do,

he'll show it to me,

and I'll be like,

"All right,

I know how to do it."

Hit, hit, hit.

Now push back.

Even though it may not

seem like it,

he does a lot of the work.

I--I don't sleep quite as much

as I used to.

It's like a gold rush.

Brands wisely

are now seeing

that you can

pinpoint an audience

better, probably,

through social media,

and TikTok especially,

than a lot of traditional

means of advertising,

and then, there's a lot

of people who's trying

to take advantage

of the gold rush,

who just shouldn't be,

who are incompetent,

but a lot of the influencers

are young and inexperienced,

- and don't know better.

- Right.

I think that having a parent

filter social media messages

is critical

parent involvement,

if you wanna keep an eye

- on your child--

- It's very important.

Yeah.

♪ Inferno ♪

♪ Baby, I'm the reason

why bad's so fun ♪

"A third

of TikTok's US users

may be 14 or under,

raising safety questions."

is now called TikTok,

has agreed to pay

millions of dollars in fines

for illegally collecting

personal information

from children.

♪ ♪

Hey, Carter.

These companies

are preying on children.

TikTok is amassing

a profile on them,

so that they can be

targeted by advertisers.

They can push ideas

to that child,

and that is dangerous.

♪ ♪

One of the unique features

of TikTok

is that a child

could post a video,

uh, dancing and having fun,

uh, and there's a feature

on it called "Duets",

where you have children

posting their own videos

and then you just have

these older men

staring at them.

♪ Good morning, beautiful ♪

♪ How was your night? ♪

While these older men

doing... you know,

just part of "I wanna be

in a duet with you."

We have one where the girl

went to kiss her camera

at the same time one of these

older men kisses his camera,

so it looks like you're having

an older man making out

with-with a young girl.

These people

are seeing your children.

And they could contact them

through the TikTok app.

There were child predators

before social media,

but they didn't have

direct access

to your child's inbox.

♪ Walk up in dat bit'

too clean, I' froze ♪

♪ They donвЂ™t fight you

where I' from ♪

♪ Like the beat,

I keep a drum ♪

♪ You ain't got dough,

lil' boy ♪

I'm involved in working

on litigation

against TikTok, and my son

is up in his bedroom,

you know, doing livestream

on TikTok, it turned out.

So, like, the work I do,

is that--is that ever

on the back of your mind,

like, "I'm using all these apps,

"and my dad has these lawsuits

against these companies

for data

and protecting people..."

Like, do you think

about that?

No. I just think about it

'cause you come home

and tell me

about all that stuff,

and then I'm like,

technology is like someone

my age is, like,

so essential to everything

I do that it's, like,

I kind of have to live

with the fact that there's gonna

be people that are profiting

off my data, and I have

no real recourse for that.

What's more concerning

is, like, the--the accuracy

of the algorithm, like,

I could be talking

about a movie

and then later that day,

that movie, like, shows up

on my feed.

And you're just talking

randomly to somebody

- about the movie?

- That happens, like...

way more often

than I'm comfortable with.

And that

doesn't freak you out?

Oh, it does, to some degree,

but, like, I guess

I'm used to it

at this point,

like it happens

so much.

♪ ♪

I am on the frontlines

of fighting privacy battles

for children.

And my kids know

that's what I do,

but they're on the app,

so it's a fight you fight,

but it's a difficult fight

to win with your kids.

You can only do so much,

and these companies know that.

If there's no regulation of it,

you, as a parent,

you don't have any control

over what's being pushed

to these kids.

♪ ♪

Gen-Z is a unique generation.

To be a digital native

is to be someone

who doesn't know a world

without the internet.

Teenagers are in a really

sensitive point

in their development,

both in terms of how

their brains are rewiring,

and in terms of how they're

making sense of themselves

and their place in the world.

What ends up happening

is that the algorithms

themselves end up shaping

the development

of teenagers on these apps,

in ways that we don't

understand at all.

With any recommendation

algorithm, you run the risk

of individuals who look

similar to each other,

in terms of their activity,

getting pushed closer

and closer and closer together

in terms of content

that they're being recommended,

and whatever information

is gonna confirm

your preexisting beliefs.

♪ ♪

By not allowing people

from diverse perspectives

to come into contact

with each other...

it lessens their ability

for empathy.

The algorithms are

reinforcing social disparities.

It's not just TikTok.

It is the technology

that TikTok relies on,

but recommendation algorithms

have infiltrated

all aspects of our society.

♪ ♪

Humans are relying

on recommendation systems

to tell them

what decisions to make.

And they are determining

our futures moment by moment,

in ways that we have

very little control.

If we fail to regulate

social media

and the impact that it's

having on this generation,

we're gonna see a lot

of marginalised teenagers

experiencing harms

that none of us

had the experience

and that none of us

are prepared

to help them navigate.

♪ ♪

I've been

in the spotlight

since I was 16.

And it is exhausting.

There's definitely

this tension, uh, always

between produce,

produce, produce,

stay relevant,

and produce things

that you're going to be

proud of in ten years,

and they don't always

go together.

They can't.

And... I think it leads me

to question now,

"Am I doing the right thing?

Did I make

the right choices?"

♪ ♪

I was raised

by a single mom,

and I grew up in a household

that, like many,

couldn't afford

the basics.

Probably the hardest time

was when my mom started

to decline

into substance abuse.

♪ ♪

When I was 15, I walked out

of my mom's house,

because I couldn't get

what I needed there.

And so, for me,

that looked

like living

at a friend's house,

until I graduated

and moved to college.

I was seeing

a therapist at Columbia

for the first time ever,

and I, like,

went into her office

and I was shaking

and crying

and she couldn't understand,

and then she was telling me,

"You know,

why don't you just delete

your social media?"

I was like, "What you

don't understand

"is that I can't delete

these accounts,

"because they are what

keeps me financially stable.

"I pay all of my own bills,

and then, additionally,

I pay my mom's bills."

And monetising

on social media's given me

the opportunity to do that."

When I'm being abused

or harassed online,

it's almost impossible

for me to step away.

And it's kind of like

an abusive relationship

in that regard.

I have to open myself up

to this hate,

because this is what creates

financial stability for me.

What starts out as just

a place to be creative,

and express yourself,

becomes this rat race

for attention.

And this need

to constantly chase

a like count,

follow accounts,

and view counts.

A need to constantly perform

in a way that can really

break people down.

Social media influencer

was the fourth highest

aspiration among

elementary school students.

On the outside,

the life of influencers

looks really fun

and glamorous.

On the inside,

a lot of those influencers,

in addition to getting

some external validation,

they're getting

a lot of harassment and hate.

They have to perform

happiness all of the time.

Many of them are struggling

with depression,

anxiety, burnout,

and that is having

very real-world consequences.

So that algorithm that's

always trying to figure out

what the hottest trends are,

is constantly lifting

something up

to the stratosphere,

and then taking it

back down again.

To me, this is bigger

than TikTok.

It's about who in our society

gets heard,

and what you have to do

in our society to get heard.

♪ ♪

After my first video

about the Uyghurs

was taken down, I knew I had

to disguise my video,

so I grabbed

my pink eyelash curler,

and I started curling

my lashes.

This is the one

that started it all.

Hi, guys,

I'm gonna teach you, guys,

how to get long lashes,

so the first thing

you need to do

is grab your lash curler,

curl your lashes, obviously,

then you're gonna

put them down

and use your phone

that you're using right now

to search up

what's happening in China,

how they're getting

concentration camps,

throwing innocent Muslims

in there,

separating their families

from each other,

kidnapping them,

murdering them,

raping them,

forcing them...

I spoke about that in just,

like, 40 seconds,

and I continued on doing

the eyelash tutorial.

...this is another Holocaust,

yet no one is talking

about it.

Please, be aware.

Please, spread awareness.

And... yeah, so you can grab

your lash curler again...

It reached millions,

it reached millions, and...

people were...

People were shocked

in the comments.

You popped up in my "For You"

page and I was like,

"Oh, my God, that's Feroza.

I was, like,

"I sent this to her,"

and I was like, "Why are you

on my 'For You' page?

And why do you have, like, so

many likes?" It was like crazy.

I had to tell my mom

right after that.

I was like, "Ugh, people

are sending it now.

I should tell my mom

I have TikTok."

My mom, like,

we were watching the news,

and she's like,

"Is that Feroza?"

I was like, "Oh, my Gosh.

Yes, it's my friend".

♪ ♪

A 40-second video

going viral in just one day.

That's, like, the power

that TikTok holds.

So I decided to post

two more videos, uh,

the following two days,

to just post more information

on how to help.

Hey, guys, you wanted

a second part to the video

on how to get longer lashes,

so here it is.

And, by the way,

I say that so TikTok

doesn't take down my videos.

I don't think TikTok noticed

what I posted at first,

and then the following day,

it was like a Monday,

I wake up at 5:00 a.m.

for school, and I go on TikTok

to see how many views

the next two videos got,

and I see that I can't even

go on TikTok.

My--my account's suspended.

"Your account is

temporarily suspended

because it goes against

community guidelines."

Nothing from my posts

violates community guidelines.

I show nothing of hate speech,

I show no profanity,

everything I spoke

about was factual evidence.

My first thought after seeing

this black screen

on my phone was, "I'm not

letting them silence me."

I--I quickly made

a Twitter account.

I quickly posted on Instagram

that, "Hey, I was silenced

for speaking up",

and I'm not gonna let them

get away with that.

And I asked people

to continue sharing the video.

I'm so grateful

that people heard me

saying that my voice

was taken away.

17-year-old Feroza Aziz...

Joining us now

is Feroza Aziz...

In less than a few

days, I was on Al-Jazeera,

BBC, CNN...

More than 1.5 million people

watched it just on TikTok.

What kind of responses

have you had?

Just from regular people...

Half of them is positive,

and the other half

is, "Well, I don't know

this is happening.

"Why am I hearing this

on TikTok

and why not on the news?"

I did, uhm, feel

a little bit upset, though,

because I thought, as if

more attention was brought

to me being silenced

than to what I was actually

speaking about.

I remember seeing

headlines saying,

"Oh, Beijing-owned app

takes down video."

And not, "Oh, like, there's

a Uyghur genocide happening."

I felt very overwhelmed

with the news coverage.

One of my idols--

I have, like, her picture

on my wall, mm, AOC retweeted

an article of me.

♪ ♪

I didn't expect, uhm,

politicians from China

to even comment on it.

China's Prime Ministry

said it had no specifics

of this case.

You saying the content

is still on the TikTok account?

I'm not aware

of the situation.

How could I know

what's happening

on the account

of one individual?

I thought I had

the freedom of speech,

but I guess... under TikTok

that's not possible

for me to have that right.

♪ ♪

Content

moderation is a process

of determining

what's appropriate

and what's not

appropriate online.

One of the natural tensions

becomes if you have

a company but it's

all throughout the globe,

do you adjust to the cultural

norms of another country?

And a lot of people,

when on Facebook or TikTok

or Instagram, they talk

about it by using concepts

like freedom of speech,

because all throughout society,

specifically American society,

we have debated.

What's appropriate?

How you balance

individual autonomy

and expression

with the societal impact?

That used to reside

in governmental bodies.

♪ ♪

With social media,

the power

of determining speech

has been far

too consolidated.

Major tech companies...

if they have the power

of deciding what's okay

and what's not okay

with what I say,

if they have the power

to deplatform.

That puts a tremendous

level of power

in an unelected official.

That's antidemocratic.

♪ ♪

I mean, the think

about TikTok is

it's, so it's--it's

Chinese-owned,

or just that, owners,

they don't control it.

In fact, TikTok takes

a much, much stronger attitude

against the sort

of content that...

well, that

the Chinese government

wouldn't like to see

on a social media app.

There's no orders coming down

from up high,

it's just the understanding

that you will do what Beijing

wants and you'll try

and guess what they want

and do it

without being asked.

♪ ♪

You know, I might--I might

go livestream

on Duoyin a little bit.

That's what's high on Duoyin.

But...

There's one problem,

'cause all the restrictions

of my tattoos.

They might shut me down.

Here we go.

We're live!

Tattoos? No.

And so the piercing? No.

Ah! Sorry, sorry.

Did you see that?

Because I have tattoos,

I can't--I can't go livestream.

That's--that's really messed up.

You know?

Yeah, on Duoyin

you have to watch

everything that you say.

Just one word...

one frame

could set your whole video off.

For the first time in history,

a person can write something

or say something

and have it reach

a large segment of the world.

So this brings up the topic

of censorship,

which is really tricky.

The internet allows

for the fastest spread of ideas

in the history of the world.

China with

the great firewall

and with government moderation

has taken a very active hand

in controlling what topics

are discussed,

what ideas are acceptable

to discuss on the internet.

We've never had to grapple

with questions around censorship

and in an era where

so many people have

a global megaphone now

in their hands.

♪ ♪

It was back in late December

when Dr. Li Wenliang

first warned friends

on WeChat

about a SARS-like

disease going around.

Li sent a group message

saying that a test result

from a patient quarantined

at the hospital

where he worked showed

a patient had a coronavirus,

but hours after being sent,

Wuhan City health officials

tracked Li down,

questioning where he got

the information.

Dr. Li sounded the alarm early

in the COVID-19 outbreak.

He soon faced

government intimidation,

and then contracted

the virus.

When he passed away,

I was among

many Chinese médecins

who expressed grief

and outrage

at the events,

only to have

my account deleted.

I felt guilt

more than anger.

At the time, I was

a tech worker at ByteDance,

where I helped develop tools

and platforms

for content moderation.

In other words,

I had helped build a system

that censored accounts

like mine.

♪ ♪

The technologies we created

supported the entire company's

content moderation,

including Duoyin at home,

and its international

equivalent, TikTok.

♪ ♪

There was a long,

constantly updated list

of sensitive words,

dates and names.

If a user mentioned

a sensitive term,

they would shut down the

ongoing livestream session

and even suspend

or delete their account.

♪ ♪

Many of my colleagues

felt uneasy

about what we were doing,

but we all felt that

there was nothing we can do.

♪ ♪

Dr. Li warned

his colleagues and friends

about an unknown virus.

He was punished for that.

Just imagine,

had any social media platform

been able to reject

the government's

censorship directives,

perhaps millions of lives

would have been saved today.

♪ ♪

TikTok faces

government investigation

in over seven countries,

all citing concerns

over national security

and content moderation.

♪ ♪

In 2019, we had someone

contact us,

claiming to have internal

information and access

to internal TikTok

moderation guidelines.

And I don't think we realised,

at the time,

how big the story would get.

What we saw was that TikTok

was very explicit

about what it wanted to have

on the platform,

and what it didn't want

to show on the platform.

♪ ♪

TikTok rarely deletes content.

They don't have to.

They can just hide it.

♪ ♪

The guidelines were explicitly

instructing moderators

to deal with people who are

LGBTQ or had disabilities

or for whatever reason

TikTok felt

were vulnerable to bullying

by hiding their content.

So it was in Mandarin,

and underneath

a fairly awkward

English translation,

so it says subjects

who is susceptible to bullying

or harassment, based on their

physical or mental condition.

Example, facial disfigurement,

autism,

Down syndrome,

disabled people or people

with some facial

problems, etc.

Content of subjects likely

to incite cyberbullying

will be allowed,

but marked with risk tag 4.

Basically, and like...

different levels

of what we call

"algorithmic punishment"

or "algorithmic visibility,"

so they were put in a category

called "Risk 4,"

which means that as soon

as their videos

would reach a certain threshold

of views,

they would automatically also be

taken from the "For You" feed.

♪ ♪

Later on,

other leaks surfaced.

I actually have the ugly

content policy

right in front of me,

So... crazy to read this.

"Abnormal body shape,

chubby,

"ugly facial looks,

"not limited

to 'disformatted' face,

"fangs, lack of front teeth,

senior people

with too many wrinkles..."

And it just goes

on and on, right?

In a statement, TikTok said,

"Earlier, we took

a blunt approach

"to minimising conflict

on the platform...

"Today we use local content

moderation policies.

"We want TikTok to be a space

where everyone can safely

and freely

express themselves."

It's just a lot of the "move

fast and break things"

attitude that we've seen

from other

Silicon Valley companies.

It's not like only TikTok

was doing these things.

Obviously, the representation

that we see in media

is not an accurate picture

of society,

but I think there is

a difference

that, you know, no TV station,

nor does Hollywood

pretends to be open access

to everybody,

whereas this is a promise

that social media

platforms make.

♪ ♪

Am I the only one

that has noticed

that black creators get

least favorite body algorithm?

How is it that my followers

are not seeing my video?

What's up

with that algorithm?

I've had some of my TikTok

videos get zero views,

and I've been shadowbanned.

Shadowbanning

on TikTok is just when

something in the algorithm

that just kind

of shuts you out completely.

They just like find a way

to make it

so nobody sees

any of your content.

I am an apprenticing

ocularist,

an artist who works

in the medical field, uh,

making prosthetic eyes.

TikTok's algorithm is very good.

You know, you can

create an account

and within a couple of hours

or a couple of days

that algorithm

knows who you are.

You know?

So for that same algorithm

to kind of just...

rip the rug out from thousands

of Black creators,

it kind of pulls you back

for a second.

We know the history

that this nation

has with Black people.

We know the savagery

that they had to endure

because of colonisers,

and the savagery that

they still have to endure...

I got on, and I had made

a video talking

about how my "For You" page

was only of white creators

and by that point,

I would say I had...

150 to 200,000 followers.

And so I had a video sitting,

that I've published

for three hours,

and it said zero views.

That was the first time

where I was, like,

this is blatant shadowbanning.

Nobody's seeing us

'cause they're ensuring

that nobody can.

Tech troubles.

TikTok says a technical glitch

is making it appear

as if posts with the hashtag

and"

The video platform says

it's dealing

with a display issue

adding that videos

featuring those tags

have amassed more

than two billion views.

The moment you go

to use a tag on TikTok,

it'll tell you how many views,

have been on that tag.

And you go to write

"black lives matter",

and it says zero

or, you know,"

"georgefloyd,"

"ahmaudarbery," anything.

It would tell you zero.

TikTok said

in a statement,

which reads in part, "First,

to our Black community:

We want to..."

"Last week,

a technical glitch made it

"temporarily appear as if posts

uploaded using

"and

"We understand

that many assumed

"it's bugged to be

an intentional act

"to suppress experiences

and invalidate the emotions

"felt by the Black community,

and we know

we have work to do

to regain

and repair that trust."

Kind of like the normal

check points

that people go through.

"We're growing,

we're learning,

we're trying to do better."

I would love to believe

that it was a technical glitch.

'Cause you're like,

"That's absolutely possible.

100%," but it's

so oddly specific

that I can't attribute that

to just being a glitch.

TikTok has said

that their content moderation

has changed.

Some of what you see on there

backs that up.

The sense that you see

a lot of activism there.

You saw Black Lives

Matter content,

eventually be

up on there.

But it's constantly changing,

it's a constant black box.

We have no idea what's going

into any of these algorithms.

And there's zero transparency.

ByteDance,

the Beijing-based

owner of TikTok,

apologised for the suspension,

blaming a human

moderation error.

And TikTok says it doesn't

apply Chinese moderation

principles to its product

outside of mainland China.

After a few days,

TikTok gave my account back.

People don't seem

to understand

what it feels like to have

someone try to take away

your voice, and then

they give it back to you.

It's my voice,

and them deciding

to give me back

my account

after taking it away.

It was as if...

they could control

what I could say

and what I could do,

and it's just disgusting

to see an app do that.

'Til this day,

my classmates will post

on my social media accounts,

leaving hate comments.

I can delete the comments,

but I'm gonna go to class

the next day, and I'm gonna

sit next to the person

who hates my guts,

for just speaking on issues

I believe

must be spoken about.

When you're so invested on

apps like TikTok,

when something bad happens

on social media,

your life is torn apart.

♪ ♪

Story time. We all worked

on the Kamala Harris campaign,

in the presidential primary.

And this is your sign to get

a tattoo with your work besties.

For the people.

I was 19 years old

when I started

on the Kamala Harris campaign.

I withdrew

my sophomore year at Columbia.

And it was a huge move.

I think that our perspective

as young people

is what led us to think

TikTok is important.

There's a lot

of young people there.

We were the first campaign

that was putting content

on TikTok directly.

I feel like we have to take

a moment for this... this.

Oh, thank you.

Oh. Yes.

All of Yessica's iconic shots.

So good.

I mean, you pioneered

vertical video.

I--I love that shot

in the rain.

She was booging it down.

That one was everywhere.

I love that.

I just remember, like,

all those airplane videos

really making the rounds

on TikTok.

Absolutely.

They were

showing up everywhere.

And it was interesting

to see the progression.

Like, when different candidates

started to have, like,

their official TikToks

and what kind of content

did they make on TikTok.

I think we felt like

we were kind of starting

to hit our stride on TikTok,

and then we, like,

had to stop.

That email, that dreadful,

dreadful email we got.

The dark day

when we were told

that we couldn't be

on TikTok anymore.

When I get

this email that,

because of security reasons,

we were all being asked

to delete TikTok on government

and military phones...

That was a sad email.

That was a tough one.

TikTok ownership

by a Chinese parent company

subject to Chinese

surveillance law

has made the app's

popularity problematic,

causing concerns

from the US Army,

the Navy, the TSA,

the DNC, the RNC,

and the Biden campaign,

all banning TikTok

from their phones.

For many young soldiers

in the military

who were using TikTok,

they were in all sorts

of US military bases

around the world,

and said they would go

and they would do

pushup contests.

They would, you know,

do tours of the bases, then...

You know, they were really

showing some pretty...

top secret assets

to anyone in the world

wanting to see them,

and this was

at a moment where...

people were

not taking TikTok seriously.

But what they realised was

this silly little kids app

was collecting a ton

of information

on GPS, on location,

of all these soldiers,

and all of that,

in the end,

was heading back

into a Chinese company.

♪ It took too long,

it took too long ♪

♪ It took too long

for you to call back ♪

♪ And normally I would

just forget that... ♪

From a nation state's

perspective,

well, data is the new oil.

If I can understand

the connections between people,

I can start to target

my misinformation,

so that one person is likely

to take actions

in the real world,

like vote.

So the data

that TikTok collects

is on par with what

other social media companies

are collecting.

So, the question really becomes,

"Why is TikTok being picked on?"

Xenophobia should certainly

be considered a part,

as part of this, we've seen

a rise in hate crimes

against Asian-Americans,

and so I think,

being very clear

about the differences,

uh, of the practices

of a government

versus the people

that happen to reside

inside of that nation state.

After all, I don't agree

with 100% of the things

our nation does.

♪ I'm singing Trump 2020 ♪

♪ Trump 2020 ♪

♪ Trump 2020,

Trump 2020 ♪

♪ ♪

When I first found

Gen-Z comedians online,

it was so inspiring to me

as a comedian,

in seeing how easy it is

to build traction

on apps like TikTok.

One of my friends

had posted

that Donald Trump's

Tulsa rally

had free tickets,

and my first thought

was just how easy is it

to get a ticket.

Guys, Donald Trump

is having a rally.

All you had to do

is give your phone number

and so I got two tickets,

but I totally forgot

that I had to pick

every individual piece

of lint off of my floor,

and then sort them by size,

so I can't...

make it for Friday.

I had realised

the potential of this.

You should be really careful

going to do this, you know.

You don't want

a bunch of empty seats.

And when I posted it,

I didn't think much of it...

♪ ♪

...but in two days

it just blew up.

Oh, my God! I just registered

for Trump's rally,

and I'm so excited to not go.

Mm-hmm.

We've never had an empty seat.

And we certainly

won't in Oklahoma.

TikTok users may well be

President Trump's

latest adversary,

after thousands of people

who've gotten tickets online

didn't show up,

thanks to a secret campaign

on TikTok.

We've gotten over

a million tickets sold

and only 6,000 people showed up.

President Trump was frustrated

and angry.

TikTok is definitely

giving teenagers new power.

I think it's unbelievable

that I was able to prank

an American President.

Trump nemesis,

New York Congresswoman

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez,

gloated.

As soon as that rally happened,

that's when the rhetoric

on TikTok rose to a level

that we hadn't seen before.

The real China hawks

in his Administration

were ready to go after this

company, and then were kind

of waiting for the moment,

and this rally

and the pandemic

came together

to give them

that moment that they needed.

The Pentagon,

the Department of State,

the Department

of Homeland Security,

and the TSA have all banned

their employees

and service members

from using TikTok

on government devices,

and we know that it's

a national security risk.

People really pounced

on this moment,

not only the China hawks

and the US government,

but also the tech companies,

particularly Facebook.

Do you believe

that the Chinese government

steals technology

from US companies?

Uh, Congressman,

I think it's well documented

that the Chinese government

steals technology

from American companies.

And so Mark Zuckerberg

saw this as a moment

and Facebook pounced

on this moment,

where TikTok was getting

under pressure,

and he said, "I'm gonna

turn this up even more."

And so they started

making their case

to the different people

in Congress

who were really

going after Facebook,

and they were saying,

"You know what?

"You're looking at us

as the Boogeyman,

"but we're just a distraction,

"from the real problem,

"which are the Chinese

tech companies,

"and those are the companies

that you should be

looking at."

Now the "Wall Street Journal"

is reporting that...

Not only did

Mark Zuckerberg publicly

go against TikTok,

he lobbied behind the scenes

against the company,

in a private dinner

with the President.

There was a moment

during the pandemic

where cases were going up,

we didn't have a vaccine,

Donald Trump's campaign

wasn't doing so well,

and so Donald Trump started

really hammering this idea home

that we need to blame China

for the Coronavirus,

and this pandemic.

"Kung-flu."

The Chinese virus.

Why do you keep

using this?

- Because it comes from China.

- Sounds racist.

It's not racist at all.

No.

Not at all.

It comes from China.

Trump loved that.

He wanted to play to that,

because it became this kind

of rallying cry in the US

to go after China,

and TikTok kind of became, um,

this symbol of China

at that moment.

There have been

more than 2,500 incidents

of anti-Asian hate crimes.

It's not just

in the US,

Asians around the world

have reported discrimination

linked to Coronavirus.

Asian hate, it didn't

just started now.

It was always there.

It was

always there.

Suddenly,

because of the pandemic,

TikTok became this symbol

of this fight

between the US and China,

and a way for Donald Trump

to kind of deflect blame.

It all started

last Friday,

when President Trump

send shockwaves

through social media

after making this comment.

We're looking at TikTok.

We may be banning TikTok.

The President

threatened to block

the popular video app,

citing national

security concerns.

No. We're--we're not

a national security threat.

And we've said that time

and again,

we have very strict

data access and controls.

TikTok has said,

"American user data is stored

in the US,

"and backed up in Singapore,

not in China."

We are at a time when we're

seeing a very much...

a geopolitical tension,

as you know,

between the US and China,

and we are

in the middle of that.

In China, there is

this cyber security law

that states, "If we ask you

for information,

then you have

to give it to us."

The 2017 law mandates

that Chinese-owned companies

have to cooperate

with the Communist Party.

And so that's kind

of the heart of the problem.

TikTok can swear up and down

that they've never been asked

to give information,

but that doesn't stop

the Chinese government

from taking information

in the future.

I remember this moment,

where we had the pandemic,

we had Black Lives Matter

protests,

we have wildfires

in California,

like the world feels

like it's falling apart

and the only thing people

on the news are talking about

is this ban of TikTok.

Just the threat alone

has already had a huge impact.

Advertisers have been

hitting pause on campaigns,

worth millions of dollars...

It caused absolute chaos

in the tech industry,

like Apple and Google,

and everyone

was sort of struggling

to get a handle on it,

and thinking,

"Can a president

even do this?"

Yo, what's up, guys?

I'm sure all you guys

heard the news.

TikTok's getting banned.

I'm... going across TikTok,

and all my friends

are saying bye to TikTok

"It's so sad I have

to leave you, guys."

There's another one saying,

"Please follow me

on all my other

social media."

And I was fearing

for my career.

♪ But it's done now ♪

I have five million followers.

How can this get banned?

This is my living,

it's what I do.

And I'm starting a video

petition with

You all mean the world to me.

Thank you for everything.

Thank you for a career.

Thank you for... making all

my beatbox dreams come true.

That was tough.

I...

I thought of a million

different possibilities in my...

Maybe I gotta perform

or maybe I gotta go busk

or something, like,

"What am I gonna do?"

Like, it was definitely tough

for me to see,

because I didn't want

that to happen.

TikTok.

A few days after

the executive order,

we hear that Microsoft

is in deal talks to buy TikTok.

Then we started hearing,

"Okay, well, maybe Oracle

"wants to buy TikTok,

"maybe all these

other companies, you know,

"because if they bought TikTok

then it would no longer

be owned

by a Chinese company,"

and suddenly

that would be okay

for Donald Trump,

and, oh, by the way,

Donald Trump also wanted

to take a finder's fee

to get some money

to the Treasury,

which is probably

the most bizarre plot

of the entire storyline.

♪ ♪

TikTok kept saying,

"We're trying to find a deal,

we're trying

to find a deal,"

but, in the meantime,

nothing was actually happening,

and then the Chinese government

stepped in.

Tonight, state media have been

lashing out, once again,

saying that Beijing would,

quote, undoubtedly prepare

proportional countermeasures

for what it says could become

piracy and looting

by United States.

All of a sudden, came this law

that banned the export

or sale of any

artificial intelligence

from China.

ByteDance and TikTok

at its core

is an AI company.

And that was really

what stopped the discussion.

And could prevent

the sale of TikTok.

TikTok is one of the opening

salvos in an emerging battle

of technology between

the world's two largest

and most dynamic economies.

A new tech cold war.

And then, the November

US Presidential Elections

started heating up,

and the story of TikTok

became the biggest deal

of the century

that never actually

ended up happening,

because Donald Trump

lost the Presidency,

Biden took over

and we never revisited it.

Well, it turns out the clock

won't stop for TikTok.

President Biden has signed

a new executive order,

voiding the Trump-era decision

seeking to ban

the social media app.

Everybody, calm down.

Calm down.

TikTok is not getting banned.

I just love how Trump

tried to ban TikTok.

And now TikTok

has banned Trump.

TikTok is just one app

in what is going to be

a long line of applications

and new ways of communicating.

And so acknowledging

our own humanity in this.

On the internet, we treat

others like they're disposable,

but, and you know,

nobody is disposable.

Okay, mama, what do you think

of my haircut?

- I love it.

- You love it?

My mom's now been sober

for a little more

than four years.

And now we have

a really great relationship.

I've actively worked...

to remind myself

that she's someone

who's capable of change.

♪ ♪

As a digital native,

it's exhausting to grow up

and make mistakes

in front of everyone.

And not just the people

who are looking at me right now,

but inevitably, the people who

are looking at me in five years,

ten years...

The things you put

on the internet are forever.

But...

Hey! How's it going?

I founded GenZ Girl Gang

because social media

can be used

as a community building tool.

As my generation gets older,

and we live

TikTok, Boom. (2022) - full transcript

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