Speaker 1: River Page is now joining me to talk about that article.
Speaker 1: River Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: First of all, Hi Mandy, Thanks thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So, first of all, tell people why there are TikTok
Speaker 1: refugees going to Red Note if they have not heard
Speaker 1: the story.
Speaker 3: So there's a last year Congress passed a bill that
Speaker 3: requires by Dance, which is the Chinese parent company of TikTok,
Speaker 3: to sell TikTok to an American buyer before this coming Sunday.
Speaker 2: They just the Spreme Court just heard arguments.
Speaker 3: They're supposed to be release their findings Friday because basically
Speaker 3: by dancers saying no, we don't want to sell, but
Speaker 3: it looks like the spring Court is going to make
Speaker 3: them sell. So far they've signaled that like they're not
Speaker 3: going to sell to any American, although they could be
Speaker 3: changing now because the Chinese seem reportedly are on board
Speaker 3: with the Alumnusk buying it. Mister Beast, I just found
Speaker 3: out the YouTuber is trying to buy, so like things
Speaker 3: could change, but for right now, and especially earlier this week,
Speaker 3: it seemed like Red Book I'm sorry TikTok was going
Speaker 3: to be banned by Sunday, and so people started flocking
Speaker 3: to Red Note aka Red Book as in, you know,
Speaker 3: our our favorite quotations from the Chairman Melson dog when
Speaker 3: I was a little Red Book, also.
Speaker 2: Called in Chinese Xiaohongshu. And so.
Speaker 3: They're going there basically out of spite for American regulators
Speaker 3: for taking away an app that they love, because the
Speaker 3: Chinese are spying of them. But you know, if you
Speaker 3: grow up in my generation of twenty nine, you know
Speaker 3: you don't really have any expectation of privacy online. So
Speaker 3: people don't really take you know, the government's protection of
Speaker 3: their data as like something earnest. They think it's a
Speaker 3: sort of cynical ploy to pical narratives, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: We had a spirited discussion about this on the show earlier,
Speaker 1: and for me, it has more to do with the
Speaker 1: fact that Chinese is a geopolitical foe, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the thing that gets me. That's the tough nut
Speaker 1: to swallow. But in your article, which I think is hilarious,
Speaker 1: that you point out that all of their privacy notices
Speaker 1: are in Chinese, so you may have given them your
Speaker 1: four K and your first born child.
Speaker 3: What are you seeing.
Speaker 1: Because you joined Red Note to see what was going on,
Speaker 1: and you're seeing Chinese people and American people interact on
Speaker 1: red note correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's actually kind of lovely. The Chinese they
Speaker 3: want to see our cats. For some reason, they've implemented
Speaker 3: something called the cat tax, where if you're an American
Speaker 3: you post something, they immediately.
Speaker 2: Get in the comments and they're like, show me your cat.
Speaker 1: What about a dog?
Speaker 2: I'm a dog owner.
Speaker 1: I'm not a cat person. Do I get bounced off
Speaker 1: red note because I have a dog?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: Apparently there's something in the red note tax where if
Speaker 3: you don't have a cat, you can use a dog.
Speaker 3: I even saw a horse, so that they're pretty flexible.
Speaker 3: They're more flexible than the irs, I might add. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it's actually I mean, it's cute. I haven't seen anything
Speaker 3: like overtly political. It just the Chinese people seem sort
Speaker 3: of like the funnel. They're like, why are all these
Speaker 3: Americans here all of a sudden, But they're like asking
Speaker 3: for help with their English homework.
Speaker 1: Which is hilarious.
Speaker 2: You know, they're pretty cool. I mean, I you know.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what's funny. In your article you talk
Speaker 1: about people, you know, asking questions about what it's like
Speaker 1: to live in America and my favorite hello from your
Speaker 1: new Chinese spy. These kind of comments. But they're asking
Speaker 1: questions about Americans in life here and culture, and I'm
Speaker 1: guessing I'm hoping at least that some Americans are asking
Speaker 1: questions about them. I mean, is that going is it
Speaker 1: going both ways or is the interest in one direction only?
Speaker 3: Well, Americans love talking about themselves. A lot of the
Speaker 3: questions are like what do you think about America? Or
Speaker 3: like what do you think about you know, so even
Speaker 3: like Florida and you know, then the Chinese people will
Speaker 3: be like do you live with crocodiles? And it's like, no, alligators,
Speaker 3: but its close enough, you know, that's sort of thing.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean they're asking questions like do you
Speaker 3: have to sell your house to uh, you know, pay
Speaker 3: your medical bills? And people are like, no, we just
Speaker 3: to ignore the bill collectors, you know, like it's it's
Speaker 3: still kind of hug and cheap. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: they're they're people do seem to be like interested in
Speaker 3: each other. The Chinese weirdly, I mean, because they have
Speaker 3: like the Great Firewall where if you want to interact
Speaker 3: with Chinese people are rather Chinese people are banned from
Speaker 3: like the apps that people all over the world use,
Speaker 3: like Instagram, Facebook, it's so forth. So we haven't really
Speaker 3: had this cultural exchange before where it's like, you know,
Speaker 3: you go on any other social media site and you're
Speaker 3: seeing Japanese people, Europeans, that sort of thing. We've never
Speaker 3: really interacted our Americans have never really acted with interactive
Speaker 3: with Chinese people on this big of a scale.
Speaker 2: So it's interesting to see.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of what caught my attention because I
Speaker 1: firmly believe that the Chinese Communist government will not let
Speaker 1: this continue because of the Great Firewall they have been
Speaker 1: able to sow carefully craft what a majority of Chinese
Speaker 1: people have access to. There are Chinese people who have
Speaker 1: VPNs and they have ways of getting the outside web,
Speaker 1: But for a vast majority of Chinese people that are
Speaker 1: just going about their daily lives, they're not exposed to
Speaker 1: any of this stuff. And this has got to be
Speaker 1: a nightmare for the Chinese Communist government that now they
Speaker 1: have their citizens freely interacting with the Great Satan, right
Speaker 1: with the enemy of their geopolitical foe. I just don't
Speaker 1: I don't know if they pull the app out of
Speaker 1: China or if they pull the app out of the
Speaker 1: United States. I don't know how long they let that continue.
Speaker 1: That was my first thought about this whole thing, because
Speaker 1: to your point, it's kind of cool, right, it's neat
Speaker 1: that people are just communicating.
Speaker 2: I think that's great. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's a
Speaker 2: good point.
Speaker 3: One thing I will say is that I've been seeing
Speaker 3: posts about how like if you try to look up
Speaker 3: tiedum and square or something on red Book, like nothing
Speaker 3: comes up. So this is still a China based app,
Speaker 3: so it is still subject to the Chinese censorship laws.
Speaker 3: So maybe, you know, maybe the government will ban it.
Speaker 3: Maybe they won't ban it because they still roll it
Speaker 3: in a way, like they far more than they control TikTok, right,
Speaker 3: you know, they have a lot more direct control over
Speaker 3: Red Book.
Speaker 2: So that's still an open question to me.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think like the American government might not
Speaker 3: care for it too much either, because you know, the
Speaker 3: Chinese government is authoritarian, but you do see Chinese people
Speaker 3: just living like fairly normal, comfortable lives, and like it
Speaker 3: doesn't if you're an American government trying to create kinda
Speaker 3: as a sort of like North Korea style, you know,
Speaker 3: state that oppresses people and like every aspect of their lives,
Speaker 3: like that doesn't quite come across just because, as is
Speaker 3: the case with like even you know, the Soviet Union,
Speaker 3: if you're a political dissident, obviously life is health you.
Speaker 3: But if you're just like a normal person, you know,
Speaker 3: it doesn't really show. The oppression doesn't necessarily show up
Speaker 3: in your everyday life because you've just grown up knowing
Speaker 3: how to comply the things you can and can't say.
Speaker 2: It becomes like second.
Speaker 3: Nature, right, So you just see people Chinese people playing
Speaker 3: with cats and like living in decent apartments and cooking food,
Speaker 3: and you're.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, it doesn't look like that that over there.
Speaker 3: And so I think like the sort of hostility could
Speaker 3: come for both governments where as people understand each other more,
Speaker 3: it could be you know, the average Chinese and the
Speaker 3: average American being like, why are we fighting with these
Speaker 3: people they see and just like us?
Speaker 1: Right yep, Now, I think that's a great point. And
Speaker 1: I just wonder who's going to blink first. But hopefully
Speaker 1: this will, this kind of back and forth will continue
Speaker 1: because it's it's bound to be productive, right, And it's
Speaker 1: my understanding that TikTok itself is banned in China.
Speaker 2: Correct, that's correct.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's ironic right there. But I want
Speaker 1: to tell you that, Yeah, I'm just you know, we're
Speaker 1: just saying. I want to talk about another article you
Speaker 1: did because it caught my eye because I totally agreed
Speaker 1: with the headline, and the headline is porn is inevitable.
Speaker 1: And it's about this story before the Supreme Court right
Speaker 1: now that some states are requiring age verification on porn sites.
Speaker 1: And you know, as a mom whose daughter is going
Speaker 1: to have to date boys that learned about sex from pornography,
Speaker 1: I'm concerned about this. But the inevitability of porn I
Speaker 1: absolutely agree with. Like it's been around since the beginning
Speaker 1: of photographs. I bet you there was pornographic cave drawings
Speaker 1: at some point. We just haven't seen them.
Speaker 2: So there are like it credates the written word.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And so what happens here in this case
Speaker 1: and and you know, what do you think happens next
Speaker 1: if these sorts of things go into effect?
Speaker 3: So if the if these laws are allowed to stand,
Speaker 3: I don't think it'll make that much of a difference
Speaker 3: because there are only like a few big porn sites
Speaker 3: that are actually complying with the laws or just pulling
Speaker 3: out of the states altogether, like pornhob is pulled out
Speaker 3: of most of the states that have passed these laws
Speaker 3: in Florida, Texas, so forth. But there are still all
Speaker 3: of these like sketchy sides, most of them based in
Speaker 3: like Europe or Asia, that are easily accessible just through
Speaker 3: like a basic Google search.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: You know, and even beyond that, if you live in Florida,
Speaker 3: for example, and want to get on porn howe even
Speaker 3: though it's been pulled out, you can just like get
Speaker 3: a VPN. And so my argument was that, like, you know,
Speaker 3: if parents want to protect their kids from that, let
Speaker 3: me restate that. Sorry, what the gut, what these states
Speaker 3: are doing is giving parents a false sense of confidence
Speaker 3: that they're fandling the problem when they simply aren't. You
Speaker 3: can still watch porn in Florida without flashing your ID
Speaker 3: that you know, up in front of a webcam or
Speaker 3: another one is like you have to show your face
Speaker 3: and they use AI to calculate your age bents on
Speaker 3: your face. You can still access porn in all of
Speaker 3: these states without doing that. It's probably just going to
Speaker 3: be on the website, it's going to give you a
Speaker 3: virus or something. Plus it's on Twitter slash epects something
Speaker 3: like thirteen percent of all the material on that is porn. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and you know you don't have to provide They ask
Speaker 3: you what your ages whenever you sign up, but you
Speaker 3: can just lie.
Speaker 2: There's you know, they don't verify it anyway.
Speaker 3: So I mean it's still a similar thing with Reddit,
Speaker 3: and so it's still going to be out there. And
Speaker 3: I think what you know, parents should have been misled
Speaker 3: to thinking that the problem has been solved. If you don't,
Speaker 3: if you want to protect your kids from watching porn,
Speaker 3: you should, you know, stop giving them unfiltered Internet access
Speaker 3: from the time that they're like eight years old.
Speaker 2: You know, there are like softwares.
Speaker 3: You can you can put firewalls on your computer, like
Speaker 3: a you can filters all sorts of different things.
Speaker 2: So you know, I think that.
Speaker 3: Families have to protect themselves because the government really can't.
Speaker 3: And the only way it could would be basically to
Speaker 3: and VPNs implement like mass surveillance of everybody's Internet activity,
Speaker 3: and it would just be a Weellian It's probably unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: I like the way you put it where you said,
Speaker 1: it's giving parents a false sense of security. Because I
Speaker 1: think you're exactly right. I think that with these laws,
Speaker 1: which sound fantastic, solve it's basically playing whack a mole, right,
Speaker 1: like you hit this one over here and another one
Speaker 1: pops up over here. I think the better way to
Speaker 1: handle this is to have ongoing conversations, uncomfortable conversations with
Speaker 1: our kids from the time they're like twelve years old,
Speaker 1: about what pornography is and what it isn't, which is
Speaker 1: real sex. Okay, my sister gave the best analogy ever,
Speaker 1: and she said to her son, pornography is to sex
Speaker 1: like the WWE is to wrestling. Right, It's not anything
Speaker 1: like Greco Roman wrestling.
Speaker 2: It's just it's not.
Speaker 1: So you got to have a more personal responsibility as
Speaker 1: a parent. Even though these conversations are wildly, wildly unpopular.
Speaker 1: River Page is my guest. He's with the Free Press.
Speaker 1: You're writing this fantastic. I enjoy reading your work and
Speaker 1: hopefully we can talk again in the future about another
Speaker 1: article on something that I find interesting.
Speaker 2: River absolutely, thank you so much. Mandy, all Right, have
Speaker 2: a great day. That's River Page.