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00:00For more on this, Jonathan Penney joins us on the program.
00:02He's an associate professor at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University in Toronto.
00:08Professor Penney, thank you for joining us.
00:10So I want to get right into it.
00:11I mean, Donald Trump went from pushing for TikTok to be banned to then later opposing
00:15the Biden administration's efforts.
00:17Can you talk us through the shift in strategy?
00:20Absolutely.
00:21So this was a law that was passed under the prior administration, under Biden's administration.
00:27And it was one that was really bipartisan.
00:30You had both Republicans and Democrats working in Congress to pass this law.
00:37At least the stated justification was the concern, national security concerns about
00:43TikTok.
00:44That is TikTok being a platform that is easily controlled and influenced by the Chinese
00:52government.
00:52Why?
00:53Because ByteDance, the Chinese internet, Chinese-based internet company that owns and controls the
00:58platform, is based in Beijing.
01:01So it's one that easily is compelled to follow all the dictates of the Chinese state media,
01:07censorship, other kinds of security concerns.
01:11These were what went into the justification for the ban.
01:15What happened was that the ban came into force technically as of January 19th.
01:19So Biden's still president at that stage.
01:22He signs the ban into law.
01:26And so TikTok goes dark for a few days.
01:28Trump is then sworn in January 21st.
01:32You have an entirely new administration, and Trump takes an entirely different approach
01:37to TikTok.
01:38What was expected was that he would enforce the ban.
01:42And the way the ban worked was either TikTok is entirely divested of this Chinese internet
01:51company's ownership, that is ByteDance.
01:52ByteDance has to give up control of the platform entirely at that stage.
01:57Or if it doesn't, then it's entirely banned in the United States.
02:02What happens is Trump immediately signs an executive order when he's sworn in, delaying
02:08the application of that ban for 75 days.
02:11Now, under the law, the president does have power to delay enforcement of the ban, but
02:16only where there is good faith negotiations towards divestiture.
02:20That is qualified divestiture as defined under the law.
02:24And that means ByteDance, this Chinese internet company that is easily controlled by the Chinese
02:31government, must give up ownership and influence of the platform itself.
02:36Trump has taken an entirely different act.
02:39So J.D. Vance said last week that an agreement satisfying U.S. national security concerns
02:44is almost certain.
02:45Do you think that that's credible?
02:47And if so, what might that look like?
02:50So this seems to be the line that the new administration is taking.
02:55And what I would say is, based on what has been reported, what Trump has said, what J.D.
03:01Vance has said, is that this new deal that will likely be approved will be in violation
03:09of what the law actually requires.
03:11As I mentioned earlier, the law requires qualified divestiture.
03:16That is, ByteDance must give up entirely its ownership and control of TikTok as a platform,
03:24as a company.
03:25What seems to be in the works is a deal that involves Oracle, a company that's already
03:31been helping ByteDance and TikTok manage its data within the United States.
03:37It takes over control.
03:38But the problem with the proposed solution or the divestiture is that it doesn't meet
03:44the requirements.
03:45That is, under the deal that Trump seems to be working out right now between Oracle, ByteDance
03:51and the administration, is ByteDance, i.e., Chinese internet company and Chinese state
03:58interest, retains control over the app.
04:01So if the deal that's being reported ends up being the one that the government and Trump
04:08approves, it will be in violation of the requirements of the law.
04:12As you say, Professor, the debate has been framed as one about national security, theoretically.
04:17But to what extent do you think that rivalries among big tech platforms or even government's
04:22desire to use these apps for political purposes is more likely to be driving what we see happening?
04:28Oh, yeah.
04:29So absolutely.
04:30So the stated justifications that I mentioned earlier for the ban, at least what the members
04:37of Congress who tailored the law, their concerns, as stated, was national security.
04:41The idea that China, through the TikTok platform, could track government employees.
04:49It could use it for privacy violations.
04:53And in some cases, the concern today is that its algorithms could be used to manipulate
04:58and influence the U.S. population, therefore interfere in elections.
05:03And that's something that's been—you've seen accusations of this, both in the U.S. election
05:07and in Romania, for example, where TikTok was accused of promoting a far-right candidate
05:12on Georgescu.
05:13So this is a new concern about TikTok, but also platforms as well.
05:18The risk with these kinds of bans, and I think what the Trump administration's plan is simply
05:24this, is that it has little concern about national security.
05:30It seems to have very little concern about privacy.
05:33What the new strategy of the administration is, is that it will actually use this ban
05:40as a kind of leverage point, almost a way to extort or use the legal leverage that the
05:46law is providing to potentially weaponize TikTok for its own political purposes.
05:53That's something that we're already seeing in the United States with Elon Musk's platform
05:59X, which is clearly one which is being used to promote the politics and the programs and
06:05policies of the Trump administration.
06:08That was clear during the election.
06:09It's even clearer today.
06:12A platform being owned and controlled by Elon Musk, a very influential and powerful Trump
06:16administration official.
06:18The concern about Trump's plan is that it's going to be OK with China holding—
06:24Professor Petty, I'm so sorry.
06:26I hate to cut you off, but I've got my production team telling me that we don't have any more
06:30time.
06:31I could listen to you for a lot more time, but we have to keep it there for now.
06:34Thank you so much for coming on the show.
06:36Thanks so much.