Tik Tok is, in fact, a national security threat (01-28-2025--Hour1)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content, like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] Let's get into Tik Tok, shall we? Because all of the stuff, if you think Tik Tok is bad, oh man, Deep Seek. Deep Seek is way worse. Way, way worse. So first, let's explore Tik Tok a little bit and all of the hullabaloo over the social media app that 170 million Americans use. That's like half of us.

[00:00:59] That's crazy. 170 million Americans. Now, before I go into this, I think there are a couple things that must be defined right up front. So my card's on the table here.

[00:01:19] I'm not on Tik Tok, just for the record. I'm not on Tik Tok. I would never be on Tik Tok. There's a reason why governments, state, local, national have banned it on any of the government laptops and phones and such. So the first thing, and this goes to what I just said there is we have to answer the first question, which is, does the Chinese Communist Party control it in some way?

[00:01:47] Or do they benefit from it in some way? Okay. That's the first question. And while the Chinese government, being commies and all, just because they don't technically quote unquote own it, over in that communist country, that is a distinction without a difference. Because over in China, they've got laws.

[00:02:14] I mean, yes, they could change their laws whenever they want to. It's the beauty of being a communist regime. But they have a law over there that allows the government to take whatever it wants from any business. So if the Chinese Communist Party asks for something, and I say asks with big fat air quotes around that, if they ask for something, the businesses turn it over.

[00:02:43] Okay. So there is effectively no real distinction or difference, I should say, between TikTok and the Communist Party. It has an outward facing facade of private ownership and investment. But the back end that you don't see. The economy is what the Communist Party has access to and or controls.

[00:03:09] And in my mind, again, cards on the table, I don't see any difference there. That is a government controlled app because the company cannot do anything if the government doesn't allow it to do so. In economic terms, this is a fairly fascistic model. The outward veneer of a free operating business or corporate entity.

[00:03:39] But behind the scenes, everything is regulated and run by the government. So does the Communist Party control it? I submit yes. You may come to a different conclusion, but I would submit you are incorrect. So but that's my opinion. Number two. Is the Communist Party materially different than a private U.S. company? All right.

[00:04:09] These are these are first principles here in discussing the TikTok issue. You have to address these in my mind. That the Communist Party running China, I submit, is in fact materially different than private U.S. businesses that operate competing social media apps.

[00:04:31] Because while the government in America may actually go and cajole or ask, request or pressure companies to do things. To my knowledge, up to now, the companies are not legally required to upon penalty of like the murder of their CEOs with complying. They're not legally required to comply with simple requests.

[00:04:55] If they're if companies or sorry, if if the government wants stuff, they have to still go to the companies and the companies still can reject those solicitations. Also. That. The government isn't calling all of the shots. Again, with the punishment being death of your CEOs or imprisonment of your CEOs.

[00:05:23] The government does the does not call the shots on the algorithms, on the coding, on the. Data collection stuff, how it's used. Right. The government isn't. Supposed to be scooping all that stuff up. Right. So to me, there is, in fact, and again, that's a comparison between the U.S. government and the Chinese communist government.

[00:05:52] That's a different thing, which is actually the third question is, is the Communist Party materially different than the United States government? Again, I submit. Yes. I submit. Yes. In practice, they do often do a lot of things similarly, and that is objectionable here in America. I oppose those things when I learn of them.

[00:06:18] Most Americans object when their government acts like the Communist Chinese Party in China. They're not allowed to object. They if they are even aware of what their government is doing. Right. So those are my biases going into this story that I do believe the Chinese Communist Party controls tick tock.

[00:06:46] I do believe that the Communist Party is materially different than private U.S. businesses. And I do believe that the Communist Party in China is materially different than the United States government. I do. There are different philosophies and ideologies and all of that. So those are my biases. OK, so one hundred and seventy million Americans use tick tock. Over at the Rand Corporation.

[00:07:16] They do a lot of defense contracting and stuff like that. They do white papers, analysis on, you know, national, international, military stuff have for decades. And there's a guy over there named Nate Lavoie. And and you can read this. It's at Rand dot org. The headline is tick tock is a threat to national security, but not for the reason you think.

[00:07:42] So what have we heard up to now about the national security threat about tick tock? It's always framed where I see it. It's it's framed and usually dismissively. So as, oh, they're just going to collect your information for some future use that nobody knows. And that's all hypothetical. Right. But that's not really that's not really the big deal.

[00:08:06] The discourse surrounding the national security implications of the app overlooks a critical threat, according to Lavoie. An unprecedented corpus or body of videos ideal for training advanced deep fake generating A.I. systems. OK. All of the videos that you're posting up there.

[00:08:35] Can be used. To create the A.I. Knowledge database with images, audio. And then that A.I. can take all of your videos and make you say whatever they want you to say. This has been a concern of mine being in the industry that I am in for. For probably about 10 years. That I have such a corpus.

[00:09:01] A body of work that is available in audio format. Anybody can take my audio. And make me say whatever they want me to say and produce an audio clip that has me saying things I've never said. All it takes. I forget what the exact number is. It's not it's not a large number. It's like 15 or 20 or something like that. Vocal sounds.

[00:09:31] And with those 15 or so 20, 30 sounds. A.I. programs. And they've been able to do this for about a decade. They can take. Those sounds. And construct. Every word in the English language. The inflection and tone will be a little bit off. But the more I feed it. The more audio you give it. Then the more it can. Mimic me.

[00:09:59] The national implication threat here. Should it right now be obvious. Right. If you can make anybody say anything particularly. If you've got audio recordings of them or videos. Then. Why couldn't you start spreading these deep fake. Videos and audio. I don't know. Of. Clearance requests.

[00:10:28] And information requests. Hey. It's your boss. Tell me this thing. What was that meeting we just had. Which by the way. They can scrape off of your TikTok as well. Your location. Because when you. When you click that little. I agree to terms of service. On the TikTok app. You're giving it access. To like everything. In your phone. Everything. And so that all goes back. To the Chinese. And for you. You're. I'm just. I'm just watching cat videos. Yeah. That's fine for you.

[00:10:57] And then what happens. 10, 15, 20 years down the road. Maybe not you. But maybe somebody. Close to you. Maybe a spouse. Maybe a kid. Maybe a brother. Or sister-in-law. Something. They get a. They get a job. In a sensitive. Field. And a sensitive field. Could be. Really anything. The Chinese are interested in. Sabotaging. Or learning more about. Or stealing stuff. Right. They get. They can. Access. Information.

[00:11:27] About that other person. Through you. And your phone. They can construct. Timelines. And calendars. And stuff. Find out where this person was. Where they were going. And all this. All this stuff. They just keep scraping. And scraping. And scraping. And then what do they do. With the information. And the videos. And the audios. They feed them into their AI models. These. Learning. Models. And that's what these. That's what this deep. Fake thing. Or. What is it? Deep.

[00:11:57] Deep dive. What is it? Deep. Deep speak. Deep state. Deep seek. That's what this thing is doing. That's what the race is over. Right. They're trying to get. All of the information. They can about. Every single person. On the entire planet. Oh and then by the way. They sell all of this technology. To authoritarian regimes. To keep their populations in line. It's very helpful. If you are a despot. Very very helpful.

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[00:13:54] By feeding information. Into them. And then it quote learns. And all your TikTok videos. Are being fed. Into Chinese controlled. AI systems. To learn. About you. To learn about you. And. Maybe. To pretend to be you. If it has to. If they want to. Right. For example. There's a story.

[00:14:23] From early. 2024. A Hong Kong. Based employee. At a British. Engineering. Transferred over. 25. Million. Dollars. To foreign. Accounts. After receiving. Oral. Authorization. From his. Chief. Officer. Over the course. Of a couple of. Routine. Zoom. Meetings. The CFO. Was never on those. Zoom calls. This would have been.

[00:14:53] Standard procedure. Except that the CFO. And all the other. Employees on the calls. Were all. Impersonations. Created by. Scammers. Using. Artificial intelligence. I found out about this story. From my. Financial advisor. It has the financial. Advising. Industry. Freaking out. Well. Some. Some people. Maybe others. Not so much. And so. Anytime I want to do anything.

[00:15:23] I have to. If I call my. Financial advisor. He calls me back. He doesn't believe it's me. Unless he can call me back. Think about that. You're on a Zoom call. You take. You know. Hey. Got an email. We're going to do a Zoom call. Got to do some money transfers. Like we always do on Tuesdays. And you join the call. And there are a bunch of employees there. They all look like your. Your colleagues. You've seen them all before. You've been in these Zoom chats with them. Many. Many. Many.

[00:15:53] Many. Many times. But none of them are actually there. They sound the same. They look the same. They look like they're talking. But it's not them. As AI systems rapidly scale. These fabrications are increasingly hard to distinguish from real people. There have been. You know. A couple of. Sort of. Tells. With AI stuff. Like one of the big ones was. Six fingers.

[00:16:23] For some reason. AI generated images. Has a problem with five fingers. And so. It throws on an extra finger. So you can look at the fingers. You can look at. Look for things that should be straight lines. Like in the background. But. But may bend. Stuff like that. Eyes. Ears. Little things. Little details like that. Like. You now have to inspect all of these images. To make sure that it's not. Some AI generated image.

[00:16:53] He says. It's. This is. Nate Lavoie at Rand. Rand Corporation. It's easy to imagine. The national security implications of an adversary. Artificially generating videos of Americans. Doing and saying anything they please. How about this? Battlefield. Movements. Or atrocities. Hmm. We have video of. U.S. Marines. Doing some awful things. To poor innocent people.

[00:17:24] Right. And then. And then what do you say? Like. Well that's not me. I didn't say that thing. I didn't do that thing. Prove it. How can I prove I didn't do that? But also. The propaganda value. Is limitless. For an adversary. And that's the thing. That maybe. I should have laid out also. I view China. As. An. Adversary. I view them no differently. Than I view. The Soviet Union.

[00:17:53] That's how I view China. You don't have to. But I do. We should not be trading with them at all. Because we did not do trades with the Soviet Union. Right. We did not allow them to own companies here. We did not allow them to invest here. They were our geopolitical foe. They are an adversary. And we don't treat them like that. I disagree with that. Thanks a lot Bill Clinton. But. Like most favored nation status. All of that. No.

[00:18:23] They are playing a long game. That we cannot even. As a body politic. As a citizenry. Like. We can't even discuss. That's what it seems like to me. We are not equipped. We are not serious enough. To discuss what China is doing. They know what they're doing. They watched what happened with the Soviet Union. They're not going to make the same mistakes the Soviets made. All right. I hope you had a happy holiday season.

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[00:19:50] Right off I-485. And online at createavideo.com. Got this message from Russ. He says. This AI deepfake stuff. Is why I make my wife provide three-factor verification. Anytime she asks me to do something around the house. You can't be too careful. That's true. That's a good plan. Dennis says. I've yet to figure out what is the juice derived from the squeeze on TikTok.

[00:20:18] What does it provide that other apps don't? It does that. Boo-hoo. It does that thing. I think that's the difference. That's it. No. There's no difference. Now they will say the secret sauce is in the algorithm. It's our algorithm that pushes all of the. You know. Psychologically damaging stuff. I mean the stuff you want to see. But no. Shooting videos. Like. Remember Vines?

[00:20:48] Remember that? That was the Twitter version of it. These little six and seven second clips. Or whatever they were. They've got it for Instagram. They got it on Facebook. They got it for YouTube. They have all of these short clip things too. Now there are people. And I do feel bad for them. That. Ignorantly. Built. Massive followings. On TikTok. And do their little dance videos. And lip sync videos. And Tide Pod.

[00:21:17] Ingestion videos. Whatever. Like they. And they've amassed millions of followers. And they. They have created careers. Basically. They make money. A lot of money. Millions. Some people on TikTok. Make millions and millions of dollars. I mean it's no OnlyFans. But just as damaging. Psychologically. But the. Now the TikTok. Creators. You know. These pioneers. That did all of this work. Yeah. Like that's going to be difficult. To rebuild. I get it.

[00:21:47] Moving from one platform. To another. Is difficult. You're going to lose. People. In that migration. Process. You will. But. I will tell you a secret. Of all content creation. Content. Is king. If you. Make good content. People will find you. That is why. I toil. In obscurity. That's. And so. That is the. That's the key. And so. If you just focus on making. Whatever the content is. That got you the success.

[00:22:17] You will continue. To enjoy success. Even if you lose. Some of your. Fan base. When they don't migrate over. To whatever. Platform. Isn't a national security threat. And it's also a personal threat. To you. Right. You. If you. Amass. A large following. On TikTok. Do you think. That the Chinese government. Isn't going to use you. You think the commies. Are not going to use you. And your images. And your audio. To make you say things. Or. Make. Shoot videos of you.

[00:22:47] That you didn't do. In order to manipulate. Americans. Like. That's the game. The Chinese are playing. The communists. Do not like us. I don't know what it takes. To get this through. People's thick skulls. Communists. Do not like. America. America. They don't like. The American form of government. They see us as their rival. Right. This isn't like a. Oh my. Oh. Who's going to be the first to do this. Oh.

[00:23:16] Isn't that going to be such an achievement. This is like the race. To control outer space. Which by the way. The Chinese are trying to do also. So. To curb foreign development. Of these and other dangerous AI capabilities. The government controls exports. Of semiconductors. Which are the physical. Underpinning. Of AI. Equal emphasis. According to. This piece at Rand. Equal emphasis. Should be placed on. Cross-border transfers. Of large data sets. Or bulk data.

[00:23:46] Because that's the fuel. For generative. AI systems. Right. AI systems. That can generate information. They rely on. Massive transfers of data. This means. Re-examining foreign control. Data aggregation platforms. Especially TikTok. The U.S. government has raised. Several objections. To TikTok's data collection practices. Mainly focused on American users. Sensitive personal information. TikTok has responded to these concerns.

[00:24:16] By creating Project Texas. Everybody love Texas. An initiative to store. Protected U.S. user data. Like emails. Birthdays. And behavioral data. On U.S. based. Oracle servers. That's the company. Oracle. Safeguarding that kind of data. Is really important though. But equally significant. National security risks. Emerge from the flood. Of publicly posted videos. TikTok assures. That quote.

[00:24:45] U.S. users. Of the TikTok platform. Can still communicate. And interact. With global users. For a cohesive. Global experience. See. That's the problem. The videos. That users are posting publicly. Are not subject. To Project Texas. Restrictions. And can still end up. On those foreign servers. Where they then get. Fed. Into the AI systems. Most of the individual videos. That Americans post. On social media platforms. Are harmless.

[00:25:15] At face value. But. Every day. There were 34 million videos. Posted onto TikTok. And that is used. As training material. For their AI systems. These models. Will be able to create. Convincing deep fakes. And could be used to launch. Discreet. Large scale. And highly targeted. Influence operations. This is not. An abstract threat. Either. This is not something.

[00:25:45] Oh that could happen. In the future. No. Policymakers have to understand. In the age of generative ID. Bulk. Bulk audiovisual data. Can be more valuable. Than the birthdays. The email addresses. Right. All of that stuff. That users. Have to have. And give over. When they sign up. For TikTok. That's not even the information. That they want anymore. Chinese actors. Have already used.

[00:26:14] Generative AI. To spread disinformation. They use TikTok. To spread anti-American propaganda. Within our country. TikTok releases. Monthly lists. Of uncovered. Covert influence operations. On the app. And they show that. In May of 2024. A network. With hundreds of thousands. Of followers. Operated from China. China. Targeted a U.S. Audience. The individuals. Behind the network. Created inauthentic accounts. So fake accounts. In order to. Artificially.

[00:26:43] Amplify narratives. That the U.S. Is corrupt. And unsafe. They are working. To destabilize. Our society. Do you understand. What that means. TikTok users. Do you understand. What that means. That a communist regime. Halfway around the planet. Is using you. And your videos. And your TikTok accounts. To destabilize.

[00:27:13] Our entire society. I'm not saying. The sky is falling. I mean. I'm kind of saying. That it already has. But no. But the threat. Is real. This is not something. In the future. Why do you think. TikTok tells everybody. Post your videos. Vertical. Like make your videos. Vertical. Like not horizontal. Make them vertical. With a 916. Aspect ratio. They want uniformity. They want all of the same stuff. Because they're communists. But also.

[00:27:42] Because they want to be able to feed. Same. Same data sets. Into their systems. So it reads the same template. All the time. It doesn't have to worry about. You know. Turning the video. And different aspect ratios. Right. Perfect. Training material. For the AI. Systems. Also. The dynamic watermarking. You know. The little logos and such. That TikTok adds. To all uploaded videos. To make it difficult.

[00:28:12] For other actors. To scrape those videos. For AI training purposes. It means though. That they get to keep using it. And nobody else can. Right. So it's. It's unique to them. It's their AI. Training material. Nobody else gets to use it. All right. If you're listening to this show. You know. I try to keep up. With all sorts of current events. And I know you do too. And you've probably heard me say. Get your news. From multiple sources. Why? Well. Because it's how you detect. Media bias.

[00:28:42] Which is why I've been so impressed. With Ground News. It's an app. And it's a website. And it combines news. From around the world. In one place. So you can compare coverage. And verify information. You can check it out. At check.ground.news. Slash Pete. I put the link. In the podcast description too. I started using Ground News. A few months ago. And more recently. Chose to work with them. As an affiliate. Because it lets me see. How stories get covered. And by whom. The Blind Spot feature.

[00:29:11] Shows you which stories. Get ignored by the left. And the right. See for yourself. Check.ground.news. Slash Pete. Subscribe through that link. And you'll get 15% off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan. To get unlimited access. To every feature. Your subscription. Then not only helps my podcast. But it also supports Ground News. As they make the media landscape. More transparent. Doing the TikTok on TikTok. And the band. By the way. I just for the record. For the record. I will say.

[00:29:41] I don't believe Donald Trump. Made the right decision. On the executive order. To save TikTok. I believe he caved. To either. A pressure campaign. By TikTok. And its board. Its president. The guy that was at the inauguration. And the. The big donor. Jeff Yass. Who funded. A lot of Trump's campaign. Expenses.

[00:30:10] I don't know if he did it as a quid pro quo. I'm not alleging that. But. I think his reversal. Because Donald Trump was the first one. To start calling for the TikTok ban. And then it happened. By law. Bipartisan legislation was passed. Signed by Biden. And then the pressure campaign. Ramps up. TikTok. Applies more pressure. By taking their site down. The day before the deadline. In order to.

[00:30:39] Have all of these millennials and zoomers. Freak the bleep out. And. They have nothing. Like. If you spend seven hours a day. Scrolling TikTok videos. And it goes away. Like. You are a junkie. Looking for a fix. What do you do with your time? Oh my god. I can't do anything. Ah. You know. I can't even go cry on TikTok. Because it's down. And. I believe he caved.

[00:31:10] Maybe he works out some deal. But TikTok had months. To do a divestiture. TikTok had months. And they refused. Which was the tell. That it is not. Actually. A company. It is an arm of the communist party. In China. Because. They would rather. Fold the company. And blow out. All that shareholder value. Rather than. Give up. Ownership. Of what it is. They're using TikTok for. That should tell you everything.

[00:31:40] They went to court. They lost in court. They appealed. They lost again. And they would prefer. To not sell. They would prefer. To shut it down. ByteDance. ByteDance is the parent company. Who also has its own AI. System. Yeah. They have their own AI. What do you think is feeding their AI? ByteDance is supposed to sell TikTok. To an American buyer. Oh actually. Like a week ago.

[00:32:10] And they didn't. Failure to comply. Would result in a fine. Of five grand per user. Totaling almost one trillion dollars. Mass collection. Of bulk training data. For deep fake systems. Is not currently part of the dialogue. But it needs to be. And it needs to be. At the forefront. There are no laws. Banning the sale. Of bulk audiovisual data. Overseas. The issue with TikTok. According to the Rand. The issue is. With TikTok.

[00:32:39] Is not what is said on the app. It is the pipeline. Of training data. To countries. Of concern. Even if China. Lost access. To the body. Of TikTok data. They could still. Potentially use. American AI platforms. For nefarious purposes. Both Russia. And China. Have already used. Chat GPT. To generate malicious content. However. Companies like. Open AI. And Meta. Are subject to. American regulations.

[00:33:08] In July. 2024. Congress. Introduced a bill. That would force. Domestic. Generative. AI companies. To watermark. Their models. AI generated content. So you would be required. To have something on there. That says. This is AI. Right. A watermark. On the video. Well you know. Like one of those. Kind of faint. Images or something. Or logo. This would limit. Any adversary's ability. To effectively use.

[00:33:38] American models. For nefarious purposes. Because the generated outputs. Would be permanently. Marked. As such. And therefore. Would be hard to pass off. As reality. Chinese made models. On the other hand. Are not restricted. By these rules. Tools. The bulk data. Supplied by TikTok. Will streamline. China's creation. Of those tools. And that brings us. To Deep Seek. Which. Upended. The marketplace.

[00:34:08] Yesterday. All of a sudden. Everybody became aware of. Deep Seek. And much like. Leftists. Flocking to Blue Sky. Or that. Other Chinese. Chinese app. Where they were like. How dare you take away. My TikTok. I want to give China. All my information. And they went over. To some other. Chinese app. Right. Deep Seek. Has. Is doing the same stuff. But worse. And.

[00:34:38] It also did. Upend the entire. Model. All right. That'll do it. For this episode. Thank you so much. For listening. I could not do the show. Without your support. And the support. Of the businesses. That advertise. On the podcast. So if you'd like. Please support them too. And tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron. At my Patreon page. Or go to. ThePeteCalendarShow.com Again. Thank you so much. For listening. And don't break anything. While I'm gone.