Columbia's Tim Wu: TikTok can't be controlled by a country that has violated every internet norm

Closing arguments for the Department of Justice antitrust case against Google are expected this week. It’s one of two separate antitrust lawsuits that the tech giant is facing this year, one on search and one on Google’s advertising business. Joining us to talk about this and much more with the TikTok ban that’s proposed as well is Tim Wu. He’s Columbia Law School professor and former adviser to President Biden on tech and competition policy. And Tim, I’d actually like to start with what’s happening with TikTok, you wrote an op-ed that lays this out. You’re in favor of this proposed sale or ban. Yeah. I think that China has a a track record on Internet freedom which is totally disqualifying for let them control for letting them control the one of the world’s most important social media networks with incredible surveillance potential and also potential for collecting information. Your your your thought on this is not that it’s necessarily a national security risk right now, but that no matter what happens down the road you don’t want them here. I think it actually is a bit of a national security risk, although it’s not clearly proven. I just think China has violated so many Internet norms that in the sense part of what the US is doing is saying China you don’t get equal treatment in our markets. I have more of a trade angle on this. It’s almost like, listen, you ban all of our apps. You, you know, spot you, you take whatever data you you want from us that that behavior does not merit the same treatment as other countries and you put them more in the category of Russia and Iran. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Cuba, a few other countries that just do not obey any of the basic principles. When I was in government, we we worked on this thing where we had a declaration for the future of the Internet. It’s like here are the basic principles that law abiding countries should follow. China violates almost every one of them. And I think like that just merits different kind of market access and so you hope this goes through, you think it will, I I mean the law is already passed, it’s already passed, but then what what happens down the road with the challenge, I mean litigation the litigation is coming from the company litigation. I think company will lose that that litigation. Then the challenge is really for your viewers is figuring out how to do this kind of deal where you can divest a pretty complicated asset. So but you think it’s possible. You know, I’m not an expert on no. But you do propose some different ways of going about this. You say Google meta and Oracle could have the money but you think they’re a third party, a third party option. I don’t think it’s a good idea. You know, still an antitrust guy. To give it, you know get Tiktok to Facebook would be a disaster because then you create this monopoly. I think you know someone’s got to get creative and maybe a very wealthy individual something like that and maybe could shake stuff up. Maybe Tiktok And do you, do you think that without the algorithm that anyone can actually really do this competitively? Because what I imagine happening is Chinese say, look, we’re either not going to sell the whole thing at all or we’re going to sell it to you with the user data, you can have the users, you can have the, the name in the United States, you can’t have the algorithm. You have to develop your own algorithm. Well, if you have to develop your own algorithm in the time it’s going to take you to develop an algorithm that’s even anything within the vicinity of what TikTok is like today, that your friends at Facebook or Meta and your friends at some of the other places will have taken such large market share that it’ll be a it’ll be diminished anyway. Yeah, I think we, we don’t know. Let me say two things about it. First of all, if TikTok actually has to do everything China says, they’re not independent in the way they keep saying they are. So I want to say one thing. If they say, oh, China won’t let us sail, this whole argument that they’re actually independent from China isn’t true. Can I ask you a separate, Can I ask you a separate question? Would you say that? Yeah. And I just want to push back. Yeah. There have been a number of instances where the United States has said that we cannot either buy assets from China or sell assets to China, Right. OK. Would you therefore say that those businesses in the United States are not independent? We haven’t. Well, I mean that that somehow the government controls everything. I mean that is I’m just saying it’s in the same vicinity. No, I I hear what you’re saying. I, I I think it depends. The ones we sell, they can’t say they can’t sell are usually highly specific national security secrets. I don’t think TikTok algorithms anything like that. And TikTok is also or the rumors have been China won’t let them sell at all. You know we don’t say you can’t sell the subsidiary. We say you can’t sell this highly or or export this particular national security technology. I think it’s a big difference. So I’ll put that out there on, on your original on on your not forgotten your original question, just a question being with would a a Meadow or a snap or you name somebody else would take so much market share while you know the the you know somebody else has to build their their own. I think it’s I think it’s competitive market. I think TikTok is a huge user base. I don’t, you know, people say, oh the algorithm. Algorithm. I mean, I I don’t know. I feel these things have become more commodified. It might be special. I can’t imagine TikTok is valueless without its algorithm. That’s what I would say, you know, 171,000,000 users. I mean, it’ll be worth less money. But I also think we just coming back to the main line, we cannot have this essentially propaganda unit run by and controlled by a country which has violated every Internet norms. We need to stand up for ourselves. Stop playing the suckers. Let China ban every single one of our apps and being like, you know, Oh yes, come in and you know, do whatever you want here. And it’s also terrible for children. I’ll add that on top of everything on that. OK, let’s talk very quickly about this Google antitrust case. Give us what to expect, what we should be watching. You know, I think the word on the street at least my obviously my friends are mostly enforcement People think Google’s going to lose the case. The question is starting to be remedies. You know, I don’t know for sure. There’s a lot. I I think it’s very important that the remedy be forward-looking. If they come out of this case and just say, hey Google, stop paying Apple, you know, $20 billion a year that’ll be a favorite of Google. I think they need to think not about okay looking backwards, search engines competition is basically over. You know, the question is what’s next and what, what opens these markets?