April 16, 2023
Sunday 16 April 2023
Interview with Jane Azzopardi and Clint Stanaway, Weekend Today
Subjects: TikTok
JAYNE AZZOPARDI: Politicians in Montana have just passed a law effectively banning TikTok from all personal devices operating in the state. To discuss this, we're joined by Liberal Senator James Paterson from Melbourne. Good morning to you, Senator. This bill obviously still needs to be signed into law, but you've chaired a parliamentary committee here in Australia that's looked at this. Why do you think the politicians there are taking this measure?
SENATOR PATERSON: Well, as we've discussed on this program before TikTok is a serious national security threat for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it collects extraordinary amounts of data on its users from your biometric information, including your face print and your voice print, to your contacts and your calendar and the Wi-Fi networks you've logged in, even the other apps installed on your phone. Secondly, it's owned by a company headquartered in China called ByteDance, which is ultimately beholden to the Chinese Communist Party and would have to cooperate under China's national security laws with an investigation by a Chinese intelligence agency. That's why here in Australia, we've banned it from all Australian government devices because it represents a very serious espionage risk. It also represents a serious foreign interference risk because the Chinese Communist Party could use the app to elevate narratives that are supportive of their agendas, to suppress narratives that are critical of them, or just to sow disunity and undermine national cohesion and social cohesion in our country. So that's why states like Montana are stepping ahead and banning it. And I wouldn't be surprised if other US states follow. It's an option that we have to keep on the table here in Australia.
CLINT STANAWAY: I get that when it comes to government devices. But what about just everyday Australians? Surely this would be an overreaction?
PATERSON: Well, there are millions of Australian users on this app and many young people get their news and information about the world from this app. Should we really allow an app controlled and ultimately beholden to the Chinese Communist Party, our number one source of state backed cyberattacks and our number one source of foreign interference, to have completely unregulated access to millions of Australian users and to be able to use that for propaganda purposes? At the very least, we need to take some action to restrict their opportunities to undermine our country and our democracy. It's not good enough to do nothing at all. So it's not surprising we've started with government users but it won't end there, other protections at least will have to extend to all users in Australia.
AZZOPARDI: I mean the other side of this, you're talking about the Chinese government being able to curate the information that people say when they're using the app. TikTok is saying that banning it is a blatant attempt to censor American voices. What would you say to that?
PATERSON: I think that's a really strange argument. No one's trying to censor any individual users or the speech of the users on the platform and no one's trying to stop them from going to any other platform to have their speech in any way, shape or form. What they're saying is we shouldn't allow that to be controlled by a foreign authoritarian state, and one in our case is engaged in economic coercion against our country and which has been trying to intervene in our democracy quite overtly for some time.
STANAWAY: So let's cut to the chase, Senator. You've been vocal about the need to ban it on government devices here at home in Australia. Should it be banned point blank on all personal devices?
PATERSON: I want to keep that option very much on the table while looking for other options that are less severe than that. So, for example, in the United States they're also looking at forcing ByteDance to disown, to sell TikTok to another competitor, because that would sever the link between the company and the platform and the Chinese Communist Party. And that's the real problem here, an authoritarian state controlling a social media channel in a Western democracy.
AZZOPARDI: Is there anything TikTok could do that would make it okay, in your view, you talked about them keeping the biometric data and those sorts of things. Is there anything that could change about the way the app operates that would make it okay?
PATERSON: The best thing that they could do is to sever the link between themselves and the Chinese Communist Party. That way the app could continue to operate freely in Western democracies, but just not be controlled by an authoritarian state. That's within their power to do, they could sell the company tomorrow to someone else who doesn't have that connection to the Chinese government and therefore a lot of those concerns would be alleviated.
AZZOPARDI: All right, Senator James Paterson, thanks for your time this morning.
PATERSON: Thank you.
