Congress on Banning TikTok Today

okay so this has been through cypheus

prior to the bite Administration as well

during the Trump Administration Trump

had an executive order that wanted to

outright ban the app but it got struck

down in the courts there's been a slew

of legal challenges on that executive

order then the Biden Administration

comes in they had to redo that executive

order set up sypheus again that is why

you have this issue we have today it

really got hobbled up in the court

structure Congress is the one that needs

to move and give the authority to the

executive branch to make a move on Tick

Tock right now I know you guys will be

speaking to Senator Mark Warner in the

next hour it's his bill in the Senate

that has the White House backing that

will give the Commerce Department to

look into

items like Tic Tac not just Tick Tock

they want to give it broad support what

is interesting about this this will

obviously take months they need to make

sure the house gets on board as well to

then send it to the president and then

once it goes to Commerce then Commerce

needs to do their review this is going

to come very close to the 2024

presidential election when Democrats

certainly need those young eyeballs on

Tick Tock that's where they get their

news and these individuals lean liberal

and likely would be voting for a

Democratic president that's where I was

going to go and Maria for making life

that is very scary that young people get

their news from Tick Tock the problem

and I also to some extent feel a little

concerned about Twitter although less so

than Tick Tock uh it's just when you get

short context information it's very

difficult to actually think critically

about the information that's presented

usually the the stuff that does well on

Tick Tock is is very very out of context

short term and and uh dare I say like

designed to be viral uh you know and

that's fine like that's the goal but I I

think the level of quality there is is

not uh not something we should be very

excited about I also think it's very

interesting that Tick Tock is taking out

an insane amount of ads watch this so

check this out I have this uh this Tick

Tock that I put together here and I want

you to watch it for a second because it

really relates to what's going on with

the tick tock CEO being in Congress uh

to to defend this idea that oh we

protect your user data keep in mind

almost every single time that I open up

my phone tick tock's begging me to look

at my contacts and I don't know how many

times I need to tell it no but it just

is begging me to get my contacts and

it's really really annoying uh and one

of the big concerns is Tick Tock says oh

well we only store U.S data in the

United States yeah well why did the New

York Times then find us Tick Tock data

on a server and Singapore controlled by

China so these are these are just the

concerns that people don't really trust

Tick Tock and that's a little bit of a

problem now I want to play this for you

because it gives you a little bit of an

idea of what Tick Tock is doing now part

of the reason they're doing what I'm

about to show you is because they don't

want to lose advertisers so they're

trying to send this signal that don't

worry we are doing everything we can we

will make sure you're safe because there

are a lot of advertisers that think oh

we might end up losing our ability to

advertise to Americans on Tick Tock and

that's not good we don't want to lose

our ability to advertise to Americans on

Tick Tock we like Americans on Tick Tock

this is despite the fact that people

have been and this has been studied

people have been uh found to be

relatively passive on Tick Tock to where

you don't actually get the kind of AD

Revenue that you get on YouTube shorts

or on Tick Tock because of the mood

people are in when they're using short

form content and I found this myself as

well so I'll use myself as an example

here but I really try to avoid doing

this because I I find personally I find

the value that I get out of tick tock is

probably maybe one to two minutes of

value out of an hour of scrolling but

what happens is you get into this this

mindset of of just scrolling and from an

advertising point of view you actually

become a very passive person whereas

when you're listening to let's say a

YouTube video you're not sitting there

usually actively scrolling you're

usually doing something else like maybe

you're typing emails you're getting

ready for your day you're getting

dressed you're driving somewhere or

whatever but because you're also so

capable of doing something else without

constantly having to change the video

every you know 30 seconds you're also

capable of getting yourself life

insurance in as little as five minutes

by going to metcaven.com life or getting

to all free stocks with Weeble by going

to metcaven.com free you know

interacting with a paid sponsorship uh

that is different than what you get on

on Tick Tock so advertisers are already

worried about the the revenue that they

can pull off of tick tock uh and now

they're worried are we just gonna

totally lose that partnership because

one thing that you can do well on Tick

Tock is brand advertising this is really

talking up a brand uh rather than

expecting some form of direct response

like somebody going to a link like Met

kevin.com Life or metcaven.com free or

or the programs like that but whatever

right all right let's listen to this

Tick Tock here because uh the one that I

made because I think it's uh

enlightening about what's going on watch

this Tick Tock just did so there's been

a lot of talk about banning Tick Tock

there have even been bills introduced to

ban Tick Tock because people are worried

that Tick Tock is farming our location

and contact data and selling it to the

Chinese Communist party where tick

tock's parent company bite dance is

based this right here is today's print

edition of The New York Times it is the

paper version of the newspaper they make

money selling ads and it's pretty

typical to see full page ads like this

is a full page ad right here it's very

expensive but what's not pretty typical

to see is when we go to the middle a

full page ad from Tick Tock solely

talking about privacy but it's not just

a full page ad from Tick Tock in the

primary a section of the paper it's

actually a whole centerfold about taking

our data concerns seriously a whole

four-page section on this me thinks thou

protest too much oh I can't believe what

Tick Tock just did yeah so it's

basically this argument of uh Hey like

wow that's a lot of effort y'all putting

out there Tick Tock which which is fine

but uh that's a that's a lot of an ad in

the New York Times and that's just the

New York Times now uh another thing to

consider is that the monetization value

from a data point of view for tick tock

is deemed to be about one-third that of

Facebook and just one fifth of that of

Instagram uh The Tick Tock CEO is

testifying before Congress today about

uh you know he's going to have to answer

questions about hey basically like why

why should we not ban you right tick

tock has about 150 million users in

America and Tick Tock changed uh really

the way social media and video really

worked I mean they were transformative

in this idea of people using uh short

form content and I find it very

interesting to look at the forecasts and

projections and and the growth rates of

people using Tick Tock uh versus people

using saying say Snapchat or Facebook

the uh The Economist put together a

fantastic piece on this data I really

enjoyed it uh the uh the chart basically

shows when I show it to you this decline

of a Facebook viewership a while at the

same time we see a rise in viewership on

Tick Tock the problem is uh that or

maybe for Tech talk if there is any

problem even that growth is slowing down

a little bit take a look here at the

chart so here you've got a time spent

per day in minutes and then this is the

18 to 24 year old age group and you can

see Tick Tock over here I had a lot more

of an explosion in 2019 but then you had

an inflection point here where that

slope slowed again in 21 the slopes

slowed again at 22 the slopes load and

again it's expecting to slow in 2023. so

there's really a limit you're

approaching some form of limit to how

much people are going to be able to want

to watch Facebook but at the same time

as that limit is being approached

Instagram and Snapchat are sitting

roughly flat and Facebook is in Decline

now that's not too terribly much of a

surprise you could see that uh actually

throwing out a little bit more clearly

even in this age group here 25 to 34.

you could see Tech talk the orange line

is growing very nicely Instagram

somewhat slowly Snapchat flat and

Facebook down these charts uh thank you

to the uh The Economist for them but uh

Tick Tock basically directly takes time

away from people using these other

platforms the problem is they they don't

create as much advertising value the

advertising spend per hour for Instagram

is expected to go up to an approach

about two dollars of advertising

spending per hour of content watched

whereas Tick Tock is not really expect

to take seed about 40 cents per The

Economist uh now uh it's also worth

noting that tick tock expects to make

about sixty seven dollars off of every

single American user uh this year

Instagram is expected to make about two

hundred dollars so if you use both Tick

Tock and Instagram you're worth 67 bucks

and uh 200 respectively uh currently uh

the uh monetization is expected to

improve for all these products as well

although then again for YouTube we were

told that YouTube shorts would be

somehow game changingly profitable for

YouTube content creators and and the

amount of money that YouTube shorts

create is a joke uh I mean there was

this idea that oh maybe if uh YouTube

shorts actually generate good Revenue

people would be motivated to make better

short form content like better quality

stuff but the reality is no there's like

no money in in shorts it's it's almost a

waste of time but anyway uh there's uh

let's see here the uh The Economist

makes the argument that uh that maybe ad

Revenue will improve because right now

these platforms are still relatively

quote unquote immature uh they suggest a

reference to Facebook where Instagram

stories took a while for advertisers to

sign up but now it's a big money earner

stories although in stories it seems

like people are a little bit more active

in actually responding

uh now uh yeah unfortunately though the

uh the ads that you get on on a short

form video are almost always going to be

less valuable than that on a say five to

eight to ten minute YouTube video uh so

uh looks like about 40 of all meta's

advertisers about 10 million different

brands that's why I'll use Instagram

reels for ads now it's pretty impressive

so there's a suggestion that maybe there

could be a coming shift over to some

more uh advertising for these shorts

however uh more than two dozen

governments have now placed uh track uh

basically now banned uh tick tock on uh

government phones and government devices

uh and the reason for that is there's an

argument perhaps that Tick Tock can be

watching and recording you uh while uh

what while you're you're basically

performing other tasks on your phone uh

whether that's uh you know logging into

your bank account or or or going and

browsing through other websites

apparently there's this potential risk

that tracking pixels are following you

around to all of these other websites

when you're using your phone uh now some

say uh that this is exactly the reason

why Tech talk needs to be banned of

course I think you can regulate this

uh but uh this could also just be sort

of like a China versus America like

we're angry a disaster but really uh I

think uh given the the drama that we're

about to see unfold in congress with

Tick Tock uh I I think the idea is that

tick tock's probably not going to go

away uh it's probably going to remain

even if it ended up getting worse case

spun off into sort of a quote-unquote

us-owned entity with data more strictly

controlled in the United States I don't

see Tick Tock fully going away even

though some some governments are

starting to ban their uh employees and

and officials from actually having tick

tock on their phones and that's fine but

uh you know this uh this space is still

relatively new it's interesting though

because uh it's the amount of content

that gets produced on Tick Tock that

doesn't generate a lot of Revenue is

actually surprising at some point the

hope is because people are so captive on

on Tick Tock that maybe it will end up

driving a lot of Revenue the future

we'll see but that gives you a little

bit of an update on some of uh the

madness that's going on with uh with

Tick Tock some speculation about whether

maybe uh Microsoft or Oracle will end up

snagging Tech talk and basically taking

control of tick tock us from bite from

bite dance uh we'll see for now I I

don't know how big of a deal it is I

mean I have Tick Tock hey maybe you know

what maybe the trick is everybody just

needs to have two different phones you

know one that you could use tick tock on

and one that you use for everything else

that's it every household needs a tick

tock phone yeah how about that

that's the phone you're allowed to use

if you want to go on Tick Tock uh this

by the way is the Wall Street journals

review of U.S state government websites

use tick tock trackers review finds more

than two dozen governments have placed

web tracking code made by tick tock on

their official websites

so this is a little different from

spying on your phone uh some say that

Tick Tock can actually like turn on the

camera to your phone without you knowing

to get what your reaction is to certain

content to determine whether or not to

feed you more of that content when we're

talking about tracking pixels we're

usually talking about a section of code

that you can take from Tick Tock like as

an Advertiser and purposefully embed

into websites that you control and then

there are little plugins that you could

run to see hey which websites are

actually using that tracking pixel uh

and it's actually pretty useful for the

purposes of retargeting ads and I

suppose it's possible that if let's say

the IRS wanted to run ads about you know

make sure you don't cheat on your taxes

on Tick Tock they probably want to put a

tracking pixel in because they'd

probably hire an advertising firm that

would Implement that tracking pixel but

anyway a review of more than 3 500

websites organizations and government

entities by a Toronto based company

a fee root security found the so-called

tracking pixels from Tick Tock were

present in 30 government websites across

27 States including some states where

the app had been banned presence of the

code means the U.S governments around

the country are inadvertently

participating in the data collection

efforts of a foreign owned company I

think this foreign owned company thing

sometimes is a little uh but

fear-mongery I I don't know how really

terrible it is it's like oh no you know

China has some of my data I think that

sounds a lot more scary than it is and

there's a there is a privacy element I

do think it's worth uh being able to

consent and control that data I think

that's very important right if I want to

be able to share stuff with my contacts

on Tick Tock I should be able to opt in

or opt out I do think it's annoying that

basically every time they I open the app

I have to deny access to my contacts

because they want it so badly it just

makes me a little bit more concerned

like what are you going to do with it

but anyway Tick Tock has previously

emphasized its user data is stored in

the US not China right but we've also

seen that data in Singapore controlled

by the Chinese Communist party so the

data has certainly made its way out of

the U.S now with some of the arguments

here that oh well those were just

backups oh okay all right uh anyway so

so this Wall Street Journal piece goes

into a little bit of this uh uh tracking

code here and then of course uh The Tick

Tock CEO will be testifying in Congress

today uh against the Banning of tick

tock in America

China and Russia routinely deploy shell

companies and proxies to extract

marketing and consumer information from

advertising exchanges that display ads

according to people familiar with the

matter in many such cases data can be

used to obtain precise geolocations of

devices based on location information in

the apps see that's also a little weird

if they could sort of track your

information like your location around I

think that's that's where privacy

concerns Elevate even more uh or you

start getting access to potentially

banking information or financial

information

the uh the uh tracking data information

I think has always been very fascinating

uh think about this the US government

might not be able to track your phone

per se like may not technically be able

to go into a computer and say give me

the location of Kevin's phone and now

I'm gonna track it but they would be

able to zoom in essentially on a heat

map to my home

and uh find oh look there are two or

three phones in that house because there

are three you know geolocations we're

getting

let's just track those three and Kevin's

probably one of those you know and so

it's it's kind of scary uh how how your

data and your location can be tracked uh

very well and I think the biggest

concern about privacy when it comes to

things like this is we just don't know

yet right we just don't know yet what

the data is being used for

for example somebody here writes dreamer

spring walks rights it's a foreign

country using your data not in your best

interest yeah you're probably right and

I think that's the thing is we have

almost this potentially dangerous apathy

towards well like what does it matter if

it has some of my data uh you know uh

let's see I agree I hate that it tries

to get me to text message people my

videos yeah I mean they do want to make

it viral to spread the stuff but you're

right in order to do that they want your

contacts and those numbers

uh come on now like people even know

about a code and if they did 95 of them

still wouldn't use it I well I think you

I mean regarding the tracking pixel well

that's advertising companies using that

yeah it's it's to contain metadata

exactly looking at some of your content

here uh the in-app editor is nicer yes

uh yes uh that The Tick Tock in-app

editor is pretty good you aren't really

missing anything if you don't have Tick

Tock I mean I hate to say it but I I

agree with that I really agree with that

I I think uh providing value on uh on on

YouTube is uh is so much more of a

conversation and and deep based

perspective whereas usually on shorter

form media content you just get Snippets

of information uh like I'm gonna show

something here and this is not to be

political but I know it's gonna probably

piss some people off but I think 95

percent of you are going to look at this

and go I mean that's a reasonable you

know uh uh explanation potentially of uh

of uh you know uh of where we might want

to be a little bit more jaded right so

so y'all have heard about the the Trump

indictment right and I'm gonna keep this

one very very brief well uh the idea is

that uh basically Donald Trump uh paid

money to Michael Cohen who set up

various different entities uh and then

paid Stormy Daniels off for hush money

and again this video is not designed to

be about Trump so I'm going to keep it

very very short but what I think about

short form content on sort of the topic

of tick tock uh what I think about short

form content is you get Snippets like

this so here's this guy who pretty much

only covers stuff that's super pro right

I haven't seen something Pro left ever

but anyway so this guy Benny Johnson new

bombshell document destroys Manhattan's

district attorney case against Trump

2018 letter from Michael Cohen's lawyer

to the federal elections commission

declares Cohen used his own personal

funds to pay Stormy Daniels Trump Camp

not party to transaction did not reduce

or reimburse Cohen for payment it's over

and makes this argument that basically

this is over like like there's no case

against Donald Trump anywhere you know

but but like I hate to be jaded and I'm

not I'm not here this is a this is a

video this is a segment about Tick Tock

okay and in this segment about Tick Tock

I just want to talk about like logic and

perspective not about left or right okay

so it's not about politics just about

logic so from a logic point of view

looking at this from a logic point of

view first of all the source of this

letter allegedly is the lawyer for

Michael Cohen so Michael Cohen is is who

has already been punished for this uh is

is the source of this document uh and uh

it and so there's this potential that

what if if Michael Cohen was always set

up to be potentially the Fall Guy for

this uh and they knew they would be the

Fall Guy for this which is why we ended

up with the conviction against Michael

Cohen is it not possible that yes hush

money could have been paid by Donald

Trump or somehow to Stormy Daniels and

this letter is maybe potentially

slightly untruthful we we don't exactly

know we know there's a segment in here

that says uh neither the Trump

organization nor the Trump campaign was

a party to the transaction uh where

Cohen was potentially reimbursed

directly or indirectly that's fine but

what about Donald Trump personally you

see what I mean like there can be holes

here see neither the Trump organization

nor the Trump campaign was a party to

the transaction okay well was Donald

Trump's trust maybe Donald Trump's

Family Trust was a party to the

organization of reimbursing Michael

Cohen right and so my point is and then

like dude come on any any person can

write highly confidential on their

document to make it seem more official

right I could do that I I could send you

an email back and go hey here's a bundle

coupon and put highly confidential on it

like anybody could put highly

confidential on it okay so my point is I

think short form content uh while it's

really fun to go to sleep with I think

often uh and it frustrates me about

Twitter frustrates me about uh about uh

Tick Tock or shorts is you tend to lack

that sort of nuance and even just asking

the question raising the question right

uh so I I think it's uh I think it's

very interesting to just actually think

about sort of just on the Note briefly

of that short form content uh is uh

you know that same person wrote a

message on Tick Tock the same person and

uh suggested that in 2018 Stormy Daniels

said she never had an affair with Trump

in fact she said it was all made up to

get the money stormy lost her lawsuit

against Trump and was ordered to pay him

300K for legal fees so what's

interesting here is that she has

obviously argued that well she made that

statement under duress but this of

course this person doesn't mention her

argument that that was made under duress

which is fine maybe she's she's either

lying then or she's lying now right like

somewhere there's a lie it was either

them now we know that something's fishy

here but we also know that when you say

that she made it up and lost her lawsuit

it implies that a judge actually ruled

she was a liar but that's not actually

what a judge ruled so I replied and I

said the lawsuit was about defamation

regarding Trump's tweets about her which

were rightfully protected by the First

Amendment which was why she lost the

lawsuit the lawsuit was not about

whether or not the affair occurred of

course somebody replies because she

admitted there was no Affair well again

she's admitted to both directions and

I'm not trying to take sides just trying

to say the short form content never

gives you the depth of information that

I think is actually required to have a

full understanding of of