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ABC Listen, podcasts,

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radio, news, music

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and more. Even

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if you are a grown up

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who uses Instagram for your vertical

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video needs, you can't deny that

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TikTok, the OG vertical video

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platform, has exploded in popularity over

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the last few years. It

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has a billion users and counting. But

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recently, there's been a lot of talk

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about the national security threat that such

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a huge user base owned by a

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Chinese company poses. And

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now the US government is considering

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banning TikTok altogether. I'm

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Tegan Taylor and this is Quick Smart, the

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show that feeds you big ideas in bite

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sized pieces. So how did

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TikTok turn videos of synchronized dancing

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and lip syncing into a multi

0:54

billion dollar business model? And

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is the company's Chinese ownership really as

1:00

dangerous as governments would have us believe?

1:03

Someone who has been lip syncing in the name

1:05

of research is Jen Leag. Hey, Jen. Hello,

1:07

Tegan. So are you on TikTok?

1:10

No, I'm not. I

1:12

yeah, not really on social media at

1:14

all. And for some reason, TikTok, and

1:17

I found this when I've spoken to other

1:19

people, it's like you might get into Instagram.

1:21

But for some reason, TikTok's like the more

1:23

potent version. You know, when you're a kid

1:26

and you have like cordial straight. Yes, that's

1:28

what TikTok is totally. It's so good. Yeah.

1:31

So I was having a look at TikTok for

1:33

rear vision. This isn't usually a space would go

1:35

into. But of course, there's been so much talk

1:37

about the US potentially banning

1:40

TikTok. Australia's been

1:42

concerned about TikTok last year. It

1:44

was announced that all government devices at a

1:46

state and federal level could not have TikTok.

1:50

It's certainly something that a lot of

1:52

countries have been tackling, particularly the US.

1:54

So I wanted to look at the

1:56

history of TikTok, you know, how it

1:58

managed to amass over a

2:00

billion users in a pretty short space of time

2:02

and then look at the concerns around

2:04

the Chinese ownership and try and figure out a

2:06

bit more about it. So how did

2:09

it go from being a fairly niche app

2:11

a couple of years ago? I was trying to put

2:13

my finger on when it actually kind of came into

2:15

my consciousness. It was certainly probably 2018, 2019 to being

2:17

the most downloaded app in the world. Yeah,

2:23

there are a couple of phases. So

2:25

obviously we know that TikTok is a

2:27

Chinese company. The parent company is called

2:30

ByteDance and they

2:32

have a Chinese version of the

2:34

app called DoiYin. I think

2:36

that's been around since about 2016. They

2:40

knew they wanted a global audience and they

2:42

knew that DoiYin wasn't going to translate

2:44

globally. So this is when

2:46

they decided to basically make a whole new

2:49

brand, TikTok. And

2:51

to get an entry into the US market,

2:53

they found a Shanghai company that was doing

2:55

what they were doing, focusing

2:58

solely on the US market. This

3:01

was an app called Musicly, which

3:03

was a lip syncing app, which had

3:05

a pretty decent user base, mainly teenage

3:07

girls, but they acquired that app

3:10

and basically used that as

3:12

a way to sort of begin building

3:15

TikTok. So for the first

3:17

couple of years, very much teenage girls, dance

3:20

videos, lip syncing, all

3:22

that viral stuff. With TikTok getting

3:24

mainstream, it was really the pandemic.

3:27

A lot of people, obviously we were all

3:29

using social media a lot more. And

3:32

this is when it sort of moved from that

3:35

target demo of teenage

3:37

girls and dance videos. I mean, of

3:39

course there's still a big part of the

3:41

app, but a much wider demographic of people

3:43

started using it. So the user base in 2020,

3:46

it was the most downloaded app of

3:48

that year. It kind of makes sense

3:50

because we were all just at home

3:52

with our thoughts and our phones and

3:54

nothing else to do except for DoomScroll.

3:58

Exactly. And an interesting... shift

4:00

happens with TikTok around this time is,

4:03

as I said, we move away from those dance videos and

4:05

it becomes a bit more about people sort of getting

4:08

up close and really revealing personal

4:10

stuff about themselves through the app. And

4:12

of course, there's still the fun

4:15

stuff and whatever. But yeah, this is when

4:17

TikTok really, yeah, it goes

4:19

mainstream. So what is

4:21

it about TikTok specifically? Like why are we

4:23

looking at it? Why are we worried about

4:25

it? And why is

4:27

it so good at sucking us in? Yeah,

4:30

and this is something I didn't realize.

4:32

You might have heard a bit about

4:34

their recommendation algorithm. Now this is something

4:36

that all social media apps do now,

4:39

but TikTok did it differently. So

4:42

it's not about recommending new

4:44

friends or recommending new stuff that

4:47

your friends are doing. It's about

4:49

recommending new stuff that you

4:51

like from anyone. And that was really

4:53

different at the time. And so

4:55

it means you get a massive variety

4:58

of content from all sorts of people.

5:01

And it means that anyone's content, if

5:03

it sort of happens to catch on,

5:05

can get a ginormous audience.

5:08

And in terms of why it's

5:11

so addictive, everything you do

5:13

on the app, as soon as you open it,

5:16

you'll get a feed of videos without having

5:18

to do anything. And

5:20

the algorithm will take notice of anything

5:22

you do. A microsecond longer here or

5:24

there, and that will feed into the

5:27

algorithm in real time. And

5:29

so very quickly, you're getting a feed

5:31

which is catered just for Tegan.

5:33

A lot of makeup videos for me. So

5:36

TikTok's got this really incredibly

5:38

powerful algorithm, really tuned

5:40

into people keeping them in the app.

5:43

Over one in eight people have an account, that

5:45

number's growing. When did governments

5:48

start to get worried? Well,

5:50

one of the reasons governments started to get

5:53

worried was really because the user base exploded.

5:56

So suddenly, I mean, I think in America, it's

5:58

close to 170 million. Americans

6:00

have a TikTok account and

6:02

governments start thinking, whoa, like, wait

6:05

on a second, this is a Chinese company. And

6:07

also, you know, if we think about, this

6:10

is a bit off-topic, but if we think

6:12

about Huawei, the 5G internet provider, there's

6:14

always been this thing about when Chinese

6:16

tech companies start getting a bit too

6:19

much power, Western

6:21

countries start going, wait on a second, we're just

6:23

a little bit paranoid. So it was actually Donald Trump

6:25

in 2020 who first started saying,

6:27

wait on a second, I don't

6:30

know about TikTok. And he actually called for a ban,

6:33

which didn't really go anywhere. But really

6:35

since then, it's just gotten

6:38

louder and louder. And there's one

6:40

particular thing about TikTok and the

6:42

Chinese laws which have people concerned.

6:45

And these are some national intelligence

6:47

laws that China has. Basically, these

6:49

national intelligence laws mean that the

6:51

Communist Party can compel any company

6:53

to hand over all of their data if

6:55

they feel there's some sort of national security

6:58

breach. Now that hasn't happened yet,

7:00

but it's about what could be

7:02

done with that law. And that's the thing

7:04

a lot about TikTok and the concerns. It's not

7:06

really what they've done, it's what

7:09

they might be able to do in the future. So let's

7:11

try and get some rules. Another fear

7:13

that has been talked

7:15

about with TikTok is

7:17

this algorithm. Could they play around with it? Or could

7:20

the Communist

7:24

Party somehow influence the algorithm?

7:26

So it's showing you certain

7:28

kind of content which is favorable to something

7:31

the Chinese government is doing. There's

7:34

no evidence that they've done that yet,

7:36

but that's the fear. So there's kind

7:38

of two points of concern here. One

7:40

is data security for users and the

7:42

second is perhaps misinformation or

7:45

biased information being spread because they've got control

7:47

of the company and without maybe the oversight

7:50

that a Western country might have. Exactly, exactly.

7:52

And I think this is the other side

7:54

of the chatter about TikTok is,

7:57

you know, most people agree these

7:59

data concerns privacy, how I'm being

8:01

influenced, they're all really, really valid. And

8:03

I think something we all feel a

8:05

bit weird about at times, but

8:07

it's not just TikTok. And

8:09

so maybe what we really need

8:12

is a wholesale overview and redo

8:14

of how we manage our

8:17

data or the rules that we have in

8:19

place with social media, not just TikTok. But

8:22

they are looking at banning it in

8:24

the States. What would that ban actually

8:26

look like? Yeah, it's really

8:29

tricky. So basically what they've

8:31

got on the table at the moment, which is past

8:33

the house, it then has to go

8:36

through the Senate. So there's a long way before this is

8:38

even a reality. But essentially what they're

8:40

looking at is saying, ByteDance, you

8:43

need to sell TikTok. If you

8:45

don't sell TikTok to a non-Chinese company, then

8:47

you're banned. One of

8:49

the issues with that is TikTok has

8:52

a really huge foreign shareholder ownership

8:54

like most companies do. A

8:57

lot of them are American rich people that

8:59

have big holdings in TikTok and

9:01

they would expect huge returns if

9:03

it was ever sold. And it's worth like billions

9:05

of dollars. It's a huge company. And

9:08

so they're not going to accept it

9:10

being sold at cut price, but

9:12

then who's going to buy it? So yeah, it's

9:15

really not straightforward. And India, for example,

9:17

they're a country that has brought in

9:19

a ban due to political tensions with

9:22

China. And basically what you've seen

9:24

there is Facebook and Instagram filling in the

9:26

void. So then you get a company that's

9:28

already very powerful being even

9:31

more powerful. So if there's not

9:33

a ban, what other tools should

9:36

governments be looking at using to

9:38

guard against misinformation or misuse of

9:40

people's data? Yeah,

9:42

I mean, that's a really tricky one. Specific

9:45

to TikTok, one of the things that they've

9:47

done to try and address this issue around

9:50

US user data is now

9:52

all of that has to be kept in

9:54

the States. TikTok underwent this massive

9:57

project called Project Texas. So now all

9:59

US. data is kept in

10:01

the United States, making it a lot

10:03

harder for the Communist Party to get

10:06

that data. But I mean, in

10:08

terms of how to manage misinformation,

10:11

how do we approach that with any other social

10:13

media app? Because it's the same

10:15

thing. And so it's really about

10:18

tightening laws within your country that apply

10:20

to all of the apps, because

10:22

they can all be misused, and all have been

10:24

in the past. Why can't we

10:26

just have something nice that's just like singing

10:28

and dancing? Why does everything have to turn into a

10:31

digital hellscape? I know.

10:34

And let's wait till AI becomes a...

10:36

Anyway, I won't even go there. Sorry.

10:39

The world is on fire. Jen, thank you

10:41

so much. My pleasure. Today's

10:47

episode of Quick Smart was made on the lands

10:49

of the Jagger and Turable and Gadigal people. And

10:52

if you like this chat, share this with your favourite

10:54

influencer or with your friend who thinks that they are

10:56

one. And we've done

10:58

a fair bit on tech, social media

11:01

and AI recently. So scroll back through

11:03

the feed for that. But I do want to draw your attention

11:05

in particular to a chat I had with

11:07

Sami Shah about whether TikTok could be

11:09

the new religious pulpit. And

11:12

I'll see you next week. You've been

11:14

listening to an ABC podcast. Discover

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