Juno News - December 19, 2022


Should we ban TikTok in Canada？


Episode Stats

Length

3 minutes

Words per Minute

180.96774

Word Count

561

Sentence Count

28


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Should the Canadian government consider banning the social media platform TikTok?
00:00:04.940 That's a question more and more people are asking themselves,
00:00:07.760 and apparently security agencies in Canada are even looking into the issue.
00:00:12.480 Here's what's going on.
00:00:13.880 The U.S. is actually proposing, courtesy of some lawmakers,
00:00:18.060 to flat-out ban TikTok in their country.
00:00:20.900 Based on concerns that the company that's based out of China
00:00:23.900 is just way too cozy with the Chinese government,
00:00:26.800 TikTok can't be trusted, and TikTok's already getting up to some sketchy things.
00:00:33.000 Republican lawmakers have proposed the legislation,
00:00:35.660 but it's a bipartisan bill they've got backing from others,
00:00:39.000 and this bill may actually be proceeding.
00:00:41.480 The U.S. government in general has some concerns about TikTok.
00:00:45.000 This is not something that is a particularly partisan approach,
00:00:48.820 particularly after we see U.S. President Joe Biden's administration
00:00:52.220 picking up the ball where Donald Trump left off in terms of decoupling from China.
00:00:56.300 And one of the concerns is the degree to which various Chinese companies and tech entities
00:01:01.260 have their tentacles into the American way of life.
00:01:04.920 And that discussion is migrating up here to Canada.
00:01:07.900 A newly released study actually says that TikTok is proving harmful to young people,
00:01:12.900 particularly teenage girls, because of how the algorithms work
00:01:16.560 and the sort of content that they're pushing in the way that it's harmful.
00:01:20.000 One study found that within 30 minutes of an account being set up for a teenage girl,
00:01:24.620 they are flooded with content about weight loss and eating disorders,
00:01:29.140 the sort of stuff that can cause young women to adopt eating disorders,
00:01:33.820 leading a whole bunch of people to ask, what on earth is going on here?
00:01:37.080 Why is TikTok behaving this way?
00:01:39.000 Why are the algorithms working this way?
00:01:41.620 This is just a little too problematic for us,
00:01:44.080 based on concerns that they may be acting at the behest of the Chinese government.
00:01:48.360 We've had a lot of conversations recently in Canada the past couple of years
00:01:51.640 about both Chinese state-owned enterprises getting too involved in Canadian society
00:01:56.660 and in American society,
00:01:58.600 and also companies that may not be Chinese state-owned enterprises.
00:02:01.840 They may be privately owned companies in China,
00:02:04.440 but the way the laws work there, the way things generally operate,
00:02:08.060 these companies, the private ones, are still expected to divulge a lot of information
00:02:12.640 to the Chinese Communist Party's authoritarian government based out of Beijing
00:02:16.640 and to basically do their bidding.
00:02:19.580 U.S. government documents have actually previously accused
00:02:22.000 the former head of TikTok of just being a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party.
00:02:27.020 So this is where we're at right now,
00:02:28.880 in terms of the U.S. already pursuing a ban,
00:02:31.680 and here in Canada,
00:02:32.820 Prime Minister Justin Chido has basically acknowledged
00:02:35.200 that they're looking into it as well,
00:02:37.340 they're attentive to the issue,
00:02:38.600 and says our security agencies
00:02:40.080 are certainly taking a look at what's going on with TikTok.
00:02:44.080 Back in the day, we talked about just having a Facebook account,
00:02:47.720 a Twitter account,
00:02:48.480 things were much simpler then.
00:02:49.780 Now, there's a whole variety of new social media entities,
00:02:53.000 and people are concerned about the way some of them are affecting our daily lives,
00:02:56.720 and in the case of ones that are based in China,
00:02:59.340 concerned about privacy threats,
00:03:01.000 concerned about national security risks.
00:03:03.460 What do you think?
00:03:04.200 Should we ban TikTok from Canada?