I can now produce something that's pretty damn accurate,
and there's no way of officially verifying what's true and what's not true.
And we really need policy around that
If you believe we can change the narrative,
if you believe we can change our communities,
if you believe we can change the outcomes, then we can change the world.
I'm Rob Richardson.
Welcome to Disruption Now.
Hey, fellow disruptors Happy 2024.
Welcome to Disruption. Now I'm your host.
The moderator Rob Richardson.
With me is the original crew back the the man,
the legend, James Keys, the professor, the connoisseur Tunde Ogunlana.
How are you guys doing?
Good to see you both.
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Talking about disruptive shit. Tick tock.
Tick tock is on.
Everybody's on everybody's brain, everybody's mouth
saying this should be banned.
Obviously, there's a lot of conversation going on
given the climate of what's happening right now.
China has a very different position than the United States
on the Israel-Hamas war.
China has different interest from most of the Western nations.
So of course, there's concern that this the most popular social media app
probably in the world, TikTok, is owned by China
and all that data is going to be used, I don't know, 200 cents on my list.
Chinese drones, I don't know.
But anyhow, that's the concern of many that this
that this tool social media is being used is being weaponized against us.
So I want to start this conversation really talk about is it
a national security threat? Is it threatening our kids?
These are all the arguments we're hearing.
And I want to make sure we're having a different take than the rest of the world.
We can hear what they say.
But for us, you know, we got the best minds
as far as I'm concerned, and the most disruptive.
So let's get right to it.
What do you think starting off, James, does
TikTok present a national security threat or is this some overhyping it?
Clearly,
yeah.
What are your thoughts, too?
And do you do you agree with that, that this is just
this is pretty much just they're just replicating what's already of
what's already happening and and people are overhyping it?
Or is there any point, particularly within government,
that people maybe shouldn't use it Because, you know, there's the
you know, there's a lot of government right now, governments across the world.
And really, I think federal employees
cannot have Tik Tok within their federal of federal devices.
So do you think there's any any type of legitimate concern there
or is it just something that is across the board about social media?
I it's a good point that
I don't find enough
information any.
So I just have
James
no, I never happened.
Yeah there's that
right
right.
You have all of that
and all that.
And at that time when
I went to the public, I want to do something, but
every single aspect of that.
So every single, pretty much every single device.
And there was an article,
you had a government
guy, right?
And I
so that's why
I think that we have this now,
that that's what all nations do, by the way.
But go ahead.
Yeah. Yes.
So all
one thing.
Yeah.
Yes, absolutely.
Yeah.
You can add let me say that.
So look, look there's definitely the big five
see this as a threat and is not only now a threat to social media as a whole.
Tik Tok is now really a they're getting into Amazon's market
like people are now ordering stuff like I noticed like, like Mario, my son,
he went on there
in like getting some of a text out, like, why are you getting some of it?
Who gets it off a TikTok?
But apparently people get stuff over Tik Tok.
So like now Amazon is like because they they figured out something
they could capture people's attention.
A lot of people now is the second most used
search engine is right behind YouTube.
So now is a search engine it's a it's now is now looking into manufacturers
sitting out products.
And I think what they're worried about is that it
creates a unique advantage because China backs it,
because China backs its businesses and, of course, the U.S.
government business, we don't work that way.
So they're screaming and hollering, but they don't have any problem with that.
With that, when they when they shipped all jobs overseas in order to have
people get paid lower wages so they could be more competitive.
Right.
That's what So we've kind of this ship has sailed. Right.
And we need so if the if the policy and I want to move on,
if the issue is about data privacy, let's have a real honest,
transparent conversation, because I know everybody on this panel believes the U.S.
is way behind and needs to have a transparent data policy,
particularly for how we do data across the board.
Right.
It needs to be done because right now, social media companies like they have
algorithms that they can't even understand and they just know it works, right?
So like we need to have transparency in how these things are being are being used.
And with a I going to amplify that even more.
By the way, artificial intelligence, if you guys didn't know
just for the audience, artificial intelligence, not new.
Facebook and others have been using it for a very long time now.
It's just amplifying its ability.
And so now we really need to know how this how the algorithms are working.
And it's really presented in a transparent way.
So if this what this is about that we want to see
was transparent with ticktock, I want that applied to Facebook,
I want that applied to Amazon, I want that applied to everybody.
So we understand what's happening and what our basic data rights are.
That's where I am. I don't know. What do you guys think?
That's right.
Yeah, exactly.
No, no.
I mean, that never happens, right?
They just make up narratives and propaganda,
which I think is a part of it, too. Right.
So it's definitely is definitely bigger corporations
and they see a threat to what's happening, really a few corporations
because not that many.
We're talking about the big five, but beyond that,
it's also I believe there's also we talk about influence on young voters.
Right.
Moving to that point, like the argument I hear from from some folks
is that you have you have different things being presented
to the Chinese young people than you do to young people in America.
So they're presenting, you know, I think
what Americans usually like to consume, which are things that aren't
about necessarily education, they're about entertainment, sex, drugs.
That's what that's what people gravitate towards.
Right. And so, like, that's just a truth. Otherwise it wouldn't be out there.
And some say that the Chinese government are doing more to empower their youth.
And that's that's worrying.
It's worrying people that this is programing us, I guess,
into something that that that China wants us to be.
And people don't understand what's happening.
I don't know.
I don't I don't I don't know if we've see that credit or not.
That's the that's what that's what I think the argument is.
They're not going to say it.
I think that's what it is, though.
That's how I feel, too.
Yeah,
absolutely.
Yeah.
When we think about like you and I, James, and have conversations about
how it's just so different for our kids in this and because of social media,
it's really changed how they think, how they absorb the world.
And I think we as parents have to be more
we have to be more intentional about how they use these devices
and making sure that they're having time to to to understand that
they have to put that down.
They have to be in thought just to observe what's around them.
They have to work to not be influenced like we like.
It's really interesting.
You never see like there used to be dance parties or stuff like that.
You never see things like that.
And the reason why is because people don't want to get embarrassed.
They have something to hide.
Tik Tok about them.
24 seven You actually see, and I've heard kids say this like
they will
actually they'll be in the middle
of a basketball game rather than try to play defense.
They will be scared to get dunked on because they don't want that to be used
against them over and over and over again. So it's very interesting.
I think we got to have a
we both need a policy conversation, but we also need a perspective as people
how we how we how are we watching our kids?
This is not a tick tock thing.
Tick tock, just the latest trends. Nothing's going to replace that.
We have to figure out how we think about social media and interacting
with us, particularly with A.I. coming.
What are your thoughts
in terms of what we need to do as parents and the perspective we should have there?
We think as we think about social media and how it influences our kids.
the whole world's going to end.
Yes, you guys are horrible.
Yeah, it was two black.
Yeah.
Yep. Yeah.
People try to do bad dancing.
All that TV go through it.
Yes, Yes. Yep.
And that's a good point on that.
And we're not going to go into a deep dive.
We have a whole nother show on this.
But go ahead.
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah,
yeah, yeah. Go ahead.
Go ahead.
Yes, exactly.
Yep, exactly.
Yep. It's real.
And another good point is that yes, beyond
letting the whole world into into your living room,
it also presents a challenge in that when you and I play like I don't know
if you remember this, we play contraband. I would say how really old we are.
So this was like we were like, This is a long time ago.
But we used to play this type of Nintendo contraband. Yes.
super old.
You've got to go get that in a retro game.
So I'm really dating this, but I'm making a point here.
Used to be able to there was a beginning and an end to the game, right?
Yeah, it was.
There was a there was a beginning, middle and an end.
You beat the game.
It might take it 20 hours, but you beat it.
Right now the games are different.
The games are more like a casino, Right?
So you also have something else you got to worry about.
The level of addiction that it could create
is that now it's not just about,
you know, just playing the game and just learning the basics of the game.
Now it's like a never ending loop and a dopamine hit
that they're getting and kids at, you know, can't handle that.
Adults can't handle that.
Barely little kids can't handle it at all.
So this is really, I think, presented a challenge.
And so ticktock has just found the they've been the latest
trend in figuring out how to capture how to capture the attention.
Somebody else is coming. Right.
So it's not like this is not a unique China type of thing.
This is not China threatening us. This is
we have to understand this technology and with artificial intelligence.
And by the way, I'm a fan of of of of innovation.
I'm not anti artificial intelligence.
I'm pro transparency, I'm pro regulation, and then I'm pro innovation.
Go crazy with it because we need to understand
how these things are being how they're making decisions and what they're doing.
Because if we don't have any understanding,
it makes it that much harder to parent.
So that's my perspective on parenting, on that
less than anything else on that part. Go ahead.
Yeah,
I think a lot of percent of parents can't pay all the time.
And that's also part of the problem.
Yes. Yep,
yep, yep.
No, no. Yep.
That's right.
Yeah.
Yep. No.
Yep, yep.
That actually makes me go to the other way to do this real quick today.
Don't let me go this way.
But I get every yep.
There are companies.
Yeah,
right.
Well no, no they, they, they are, they just.
Well it's, well I actually want to transition.
This is a good transition to talk about.
But as James says, they're hacking your brain.
But this is a this is a
this is an old science. Right?
So I also recently went to Europe as well.
So we're on a zero, I guess we're on this Europe disruption trip
and one thing that was very interesting
was when I went to the Colosseum, right, and I got this tour and the woman
explained to me it was actually never called the Colosseum in Rome.
Right.
In Rome it was called theater Y because it was about propaganda.
It was about promoting Rome and then putting fear in those
who would be against Rome.
So everything they did was a performance.
Every time to ask you to somebody was a message to be sent.
They would send everybody
that was basically poor people all around that didn't have anything else to do.
It was their original football stadium.
They entertained people and got them excited about Rome
and what Rome was doing.
Even if what Rome was doing was horrible.
They made people feel as if this is great.
I'm glad to be a part of Rome.
I believe that misinformation
is an issue that's been a problem, of course, in America for a long time.
We've talked about propaganda on the show before
and how it's been the most effective thing that's been used
to really prop up parts of our economy that don't help people.
But propaganda is so strong in this country that it works.
And I believe that people see Tik-Tok as a as a propaganda machine.
The other way in terms of it's able to get out more information
that may not always be aligned with our interests.
That may not always be.
Sometimes they may be right too, by the way,
but it may not be something that we want to hear in terms of the US
government, in terms of many that are in power,
because we've always had one dominant perspective
and now we get to hear other voices and that threatens people.
And Tik Tok is one of those places.
But as every place where Tik Tok I think has been more effective
at getting out this short form content and they don't have any control over that.
So they are hacking our brains
in their own ways and now everybody's getting this
moral righteousness about them, but all of it is wrong.
So let's have a transparent approach
to how we talk about misinformation, particularly with the use of technology.
I'm all for it.
But as James says, I'm not just for this.
We're just going to select Tik Tok in Brazil like it's not a problem elsewhere.
It's definitely true.
Exactly.
Yeah,
that's right.
Yeah.
For example, Trump, Trump lost the election,
but people do still about 40% of people that believe this,
right?
I be like,
yeah, I'd be like, Yeah, but nobody talks about that.
Like, it's not a it's
to prove their point.
Yeah.
Yes, exactly. Yes.
And they are I mean that's a, that's true concern.
Yeah that's
right.
Of course they did.
That's right.
And the algorithms have made that problem worse,
which is why we don't need to ban TikTok.
We need to have regulation that's transparent,
that's going to help everybody.
And so I hope for an honest conversation.
Well, how it like
I mean, as I said, we should just make sure we are.
yeah, yeah, yeah. I forgot. Yeah,
yeah.
But like, I actually go to really think about this.
So when the president of China came here to visit and he
of course, met with the president, but you know who else was in that meeting?
Apple.
The head of Apple, Elon Musk, and Blackstone,
one of the largest investment firms in the world.
They were there.
So I say this like I just call
there you go and ask why.
And that's why I also call bullshit.
When people say like tech, we need to ban Tik Tok because it's a national
like we're tied in with China.
That ship sale 20 or 30 years ago in a lot of different ways.
And so when people say this, this I think is to really this is my perspective
is to get the masses riled up about China because it's something easy to see.
They see their kids on their dancing on Tik tok,
and they say that the Chinese companies influence them.
It's not the Chinese company is not the Chinese company is the fucking technology.
And how it's being used.
All right.
And so what you got to do is figure out
how we have transparent use of the technology.
Sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead.
That's even better.
That's a mic drop moment. Yes.
Yeah,
that's
right. No.
So, you know,
when I think about this in terms of where we're at, like
the problem with the hacking of the brain, too, is this.
Now with artificial intelligence, we have to also understand
it's going to be harder and harder to tell what's real and what's not real.
It's already pretty difficult right now.
You add with artificial intelligence.
Now you look at some stuff right now I can produce something right now
with James out there saying that he loves Trump
and he said you should vote for Trump every single time I can. I
Yeah. All right. You do that.
You like that, too?
Hyundai hates communism.
He's you know, he loves communism.
He's against capitalism, right?
He's a financial planner. That wouldn't be good for his career.
But I can now produce something that's pretty damn accurate,
and there's no way of officially verifying what's true and what's not true.
And we really need policy around that that's transparent in that,
because now we're going to know
we're not we're not only talking about entertainment.
It's one thing to not be able to tell what's true or what's not true
when I'm in the middle of entertainment, cause I know I'm being entertained
is a whole nother thing when you're talking about, you know,
political discourse,
when you're talking about taking someone's image and voice and likeness.
And none of these things are actually regulated in any type of way.
And there seems to be no rest for for the U.S.
to do this.
And so that's why
I really get kind of pissed off with this Tik Tok argument, because it's all fake,
it's all phony.
It's not about the real issue, which is actually having transparent policy.
That's going to actually help
protect us move innovation forward and most of all help people.
And so that's the conversation I want to have.
I don't want to have the conversation
about banning Tik Tok because it's not a real conversation.
It's a straw man conversation.
I want the conversation to be how are we actually making sure
that we have good policy to help us out in the long run?
That's what I want to have.
And so as we get to this, this feels like a political agenda.
This is the final point I want to talk about here.
When we know when the president of China came here,
what he did, he met with the president and he met with the real presidents.
Right.
He met with the leaders of the biggest companies, tech companies.
And they rely on China quite a bit to do quite a bit of business.
And so we're are we're as I said earlier, we're tied in.
And what really concerns me is that there's a there's also a control
by companies here about what we can see, even about even about China.
That's why I also think this is not real, right?
So I said so.
So so what I also think is what I think about this John Stuart
had a great show on Apple TV, right?
But they actually got canceled because one of the topics he wanted to talk about
is that he didn't he wanted he wanted to talk about AI in China.
He wanted to have a conversation.
Essentially, Apple was like narborough.
Yes. Yeah.
I actually think I actually think part of the reason why I sorry, interrupt you,
but I think it's an important point, what you just said.
I think part of the reason why corporations and others are also
worried about social media with Tok is that it actually is not it by itself.
This generation tends to be a lot
less like, okay, we just believe a corporation's tell us.
In fact, they're much more skeptical because they've seen
what's happened, frankly, to us and to other generations.
And I think people are trying to figure out a way
how do we control the message to get them back in our corner?
And I think that's they they fear that because it's not working
and Tik Tok allows them to share their perspective.
And this is outside of the Chinese government.
People are sharing their perspectives
about how they feel, like people talk about it
and people can never talk about things like quiet.
Quitting is one of the most trending things ever
and people are like, What the hell is going on?
It's that,
you know, young people are seeing the gig, they're seeing it,
they're seeing that things aren't working for them.
So I actually think there's some hope with them.
But their issues, they've got to keep, stay and evolve and not get discouraged.
But they they're really like
more than any generation I've seen really taking a stance.
You've seen it with the with the intense unionization like you've seen
Microsoft actually just just formed a union.
In some places, people are actually doing things.
The unions have a very high approval rating.
They're much higher at that generation than any other generation.
So I do believe that's part of the fear, is that now this information
is being shared in a way where people are like using it for activation.
They're like, no, no, we want you to we want to use social media
to entertain and be distracted.
But we don't want you talking about things like quiet quitting.
We let you talk about union unionization.
Yep. Yeah, we were.
I agree.
Yeah.
Smoke on airplanes, smoke in schools.
Be nothing.
Smoke and bars, that stuff.
Nobody does that anywhere.
That's a great point.
Yeah. Yes,
they would have thought.
Yep. It's
a misdirection. Yep.
Yeah, I agree.
I think as about as my final point, I would tell people to don't
get distracted.
Understand the goal is to distract you.
We all get distracted.
The goal is to make sure that you understand that we all are irrational.
As Robert Green, who's been on the show, said.
And the first point to being rational is to understand that we're irrational.
We can come from that point.
Then you can step off of social media and realize like, What am I taking in here?
And we got to tell our kids that too.
And critical thinking
and being really just sober minded about this is going to be really our only hope.
And I have some faith today.
I know you're kind of a pessimist here, but I actually think beyond smoking,
we've actually changed some with with with with how people eat.
People know a lot more about what they're putting in their body, what's happening.
There's still more work to be done, but a lot more people are a lot
more informed than they used to be and is the reason why I like it.
Right?
Yeah. Yes, there's that does that. Yeah.
Like it's the reason.
Yeah,
yeah, yeah.
It that too.
Yeah.
I got a good drug for them too.
It's called exercising and eating less.
That works, but
yeah,
I agree.
I mean, I agree.
No, no, no.
Because it becomes, it becomes, it becomes a habit into you
What you, what you have to work out to a new habit.
But that's a great conversation that we.
Yeah. Yes.
Yeah.
So and that's it's a wrap
this up as a full point because I know we've been talking about this for a while.
This is the point.
This is a whole other one. This is a whole other conversation. Right.
But like there's the major point that I want the listeners to understand.
The European Union is not perfect, but they're ahead of us on actually regulating
not only our food and our body,
but now
I think what's even more consequential, because I think affects all of that is
is really technology, A.I., blockchain, all that stuff they have policies for.
They have a whole A.I.
policy for how it can be used with surveillance,
how it could be used with social media, all those things, because it matters.
And so we have to wake up.
The real thing is not China, the real thing is having clear policy
to protect us and protect others from hacking our brain.
Because you can be hacked.
We can all be hacked because we're human.
I hope that's what the takeaway is from this.
But until next time.
Yes. Yes.
No. Yeah, just the thought.
But it's good.
You're never that.
Go ahead.
Well,
yeah, well, that's the easy way to go.
And then, you know.
Yeah, but meanwhile, all the money is being made inside itself.
Don't believe the hype.
So until the next time, we'll see, we'll see it.
Disruptors.
Appreciate you
know. Yes, please.
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Make sure you go join Subscribe as always they always ask good topics.
I'm I have to come back on the show as well.
Thank you.