English for International Relations 3 – Ms.
Nguyễn Vĩnh Hằng
UNIT 2 – TIKTOK
In the United States, there’s a controversy right now over a possible government ban on
(1)TikTok . The Trump Administration says the Chinese (2) _video sharing
application collects huge amounts of (3) data from its users. Their internet
searches, wherever they’ve gone with their phones and the U.S. has given TikTok’s
owner until (4) September 20th to fix the problem or possibly sell its
(5)US service to a U.S. company.
TikTok is (6)suing . It says the Trump Administration didn’t give the
company a (7)fair chance to defend itself and that the upcoming ban is
politically motivated against China.
TikTok has been banned in (8)India over it’s data collection practices but the
company still has an estimated (9)800 million users around the world including
(10)100 million in the U.S. alone. CNN 10 contributor Chris James has more.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS JAMES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: TikTok’s future is uncertain.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I have urged that TikTok be (11)closed down
in America.
JAMES: The video sharing app and the Chinese company that introduced it to the world
are in President Trump’s crosshairs.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: When we want no (12)security problems with
China. It’s got to be an American company. It’s got to be (13) American security .
It’s got to be owned (14)here .
JAMES: And many other politicians and experts agree that the data TikTok collects on its
American users is (15)unsafe in the hands of its Chinese parent company,
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English for International Relations 3 – Ms. Nguyễn Vĩnh Hằng
ByteDance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is owned by a Chinese company that includes Chinese
communist party members in (16)leadership and it is required under Chinese law
to share user data with (17)Beijjing .
JAMES: But are these security concerns a real threat?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Essentially, the concern boils down to do you want an app
(18)installed on your phone. If you believe that that app might ultimately be
influenced by a (19) foreign government that is directly competing with the U.S.
economy.
JAMES: TikTok has been downloaded over (20)2 billion times across the world.
For years, it’s been beloved by teens, but the COVID-19 pandemic has helped the app
find new (21) older audiences as well.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It’s really designed for virility not for network.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ultimately, I believe that a lot of its popularity comes from like
the culture of creativity and (22)self expression that it was able to foster
through (23)dancing , lip syncing, pranking, all sorts of stuff.
JAMES: And it’s central feature, the For You page which uses an algorithm to curate an
(24)endless scroll of videos selected just for you. To power it, TikTok like any
other social media app, collects a certain amount of data on its users. According to it’s
(25)privacy policy , this data informs TikTok’s algorithms among other
things. Facebook collects similar information but where that data is physically stored
makes all the (26)difference .
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It’s important to understand that all technology companies
ultimately answer to governments of the countries in which they (27) exist ,
where they’re based and where they operate. So the same way that Facebook ultimately
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English for International Relations 3 – Ms. Nguyễn Vĩnh Hằng
has to answer the (28)U.S government . Congress, for example, can demand that
Mark Zuckerberg testify. The same applies in China except with one major difference.
China’s a far less free country and has far less (29) protection of people’s
rights and people’s (30) personal information from the government. So the issue
isn’t whether right now TikTok’s (31)feeding information to the Chinese
government. It’s that they (32)potentially could be doing so if the government
so wanted. Congress, the president, the government really needs to create a (33)
framework in dealing with this kind of problem
going forward. There are going to be apps that come from places that aren’t the friendliest
to the United States. That’s reality. We need a framework for how to deal with
those situations. Not to deal with them
(34)one by one after 10’s of millions of people already have it.
