Uninstalled take talking and we chat stunnel truong danced me to a popular chinese absolutely security concerns does this while the americans own their freedoms and what it leads to an east west of values over the internet this is inside story. Hello there and welcome to the program on how he had seen starting this sunday americans will not be able to downloads 2 of the most popular social media apps in the world the u. S. Department of commerce said it would bar people from getting chinese apps takes hold and we chat through any app stores on any platform President Donald Trump insists the apps Parent Companies cigarettes and National Security and could pass user data to china well well have a panel of experts to discuss this in just a moment but 1st this reports from our White House CorrespondentKimberly Hawk its. A stirring rebuke from the u. S. President were not going to do anything to jeopardize security. The white house alleges the popular chinese based apps to talk and we chat are stealing american users private information and handing it to the government in beijing on friday the u. S. Commerce department announced we chat will be banned in the u. S. Starting sunday well new restrictions on tick tock will also go into place a full ban on ticktock could come into effect in november after weeks of bidding tech giant oracle submitted a proposal to run the apps in the United States but before was approved the u. S. Government moved ahead with the ban we have some great options if we can keep a lot of people happy but have the security that we need we have to have the total security for. Us social media apps like facebook and instagram are banned in china but ticktock Officials Say this decision could affect the entire industry there vallon to fight the new restrictions in the courts Vanessa Papas tick tocks general manager of the us is inviting facebook and instagram to publicly join our challenge and support our litigation this is a moment to put aside our competition and focus on Core Principles like freedom of expression and due process of law we chat has more than 1200000000. 00 active users but less than 2 percent are from the United States. The biggest impact could be on u. S. Companies like walmart starbucks nike and amazon they all use we chat ecommerce platform in china to conduct business this weeks move is part of a bigger fight the Trump Administration continues to wage with beijing recent weeks the u. S. Has taken multiple actions including rejecting chinese sovereignty over disputed parts of the South China Sea blacklisting chinas. Largest tech company while way and cancelling the visas of thousands of chinese grad students and researchers in the United States one analyst argues the move by the Trump Administration could have unintended consequences one of the principles there in the cold war is we tried to get as much information in to communist countries as we could we dropped leaflets we asked the radio and now were cutting off one of them made mechanisms we have are telling people about democracy in the rest of the world this latest fight with china is a risky one for trump with just weeks until the u. S. Election 20 percent of tik tok users will vote for the 1st time in november and trumps move is likely to be unpopular kimberly healthy at aljazeera washington. Well china has condemned the u. S. Decisions a ban text talk and we chat and urges washington to stop what it calls bullying behavior and wrongdoing it says it will take the necessary measures to safeguard the interests of chinese businesses or Chinas Ministry of commerce also retaliated by regulations aimed at Foreign Companies that it sees as a threat to National Sovereignty and security and takes talks Payment Company by chance has filed a complaint in a us federal courts challenging trumps executive order. Lets take a course a loop at these 2 chinese apps that have more than 100000000 users in the United States takes up a case a video sharing app users can post up to a minute video and have access to a vast database of songs and filters has been downloaded 2000000000 times globally and connects a huge collects a huge amount of user data including what videos people watch their phone model and even how they type we chat is described as a super app used for messaging social media and Electronic Payments you can do your shopping and because taxi or even an appointment with a doctor on the app it has around a 1000000000 active users worldwide around 19000000 of those are reported to be in the United States its popular among Chinese Students and expats and people who do business with china. Well lets bring in our guests from San Francisco were joined by mitch stoltz senior staff attorney at the Electronic FrontierFoundation Man you could see a sign or just an editor in chief at whats on waybill joins us from amsterdam and from storrs connecticut is department go she called director of digital platforms and democracy projects at the Harvard Kennedy school thank you all for joining us lets start with you may just explain says why is the u. S. Proposing a ban on take talk we shot what exactly is the National Security rationale for this ban. Thank you its obviously its fairly. It has to do with china having the ability to collect personal data from users of their which you know or includes millions of americans. Theyre claiming that is a National Security threat but if it is a National Security affairs threat then that sure that the us is justified in such a ban if this app can go through your contacts find out how you type in real time access all this information surely the government is right to take some action not really in for a couple of reasons. One there are many apps that can collect that same sort of data now many of them are u. S. Based many of them are not that that sort of data gets collected now and thats not good thing that that gets collected but we really need this comprehensive privacy laws in the United States that would regulate the collection and use of that data but the collection that we chat does its not. The other reason is the the 1st amendment to the Us Constitution puts pretty strict limits on the ways that the government can interfere with speech and banning an entire. Communications platform from the United States is a really significant interference with the speech of americans and that requires a very high level of justification so it takes more than a vague. Statement that this. Well armed actual security there really needs to be specific and weve never seen those specifics on that thats not enough to pass a constitutional test. My account see you come to us with the perspective from china you work a lot with social media in china how is this ban being perceived in Mainland China and beyond well actually also just what what micha now says actually is something that you also hear a lot by chinese experts and social media responses that people say this ban has nothing to do with the National Security of the u. S. This has everything to do with protecting american digital hedging moni and the american authorities being afraid of the social media landscape in the world shifting 2 words the westernization and shifting towards the digital rise of china and i mean america used to be the main player when it you know when it was about social media but this is changing drastically and they see that it is more about this that it is about security but theres a certain double standards there money when you look about the apps that are books in china face because been trying to work in china for years twitter has also been bands that the chinese arent they arent hesitant to impose bands of their own and not just in tech but across the board really so why is it ok for china to do this but its not ok for the us. Well the difference is that america is a democracy so and i mean america prides itself in being a free country so what a lot of social media users in china today are writing is well is this free america so this is what you pride yourself with so i mean of course there is some hypocrisy there but they all know that they are living in a digital environment that has the great firewall of china around them so i mean chinese social media users are very much aware of the censorship and the online environment that theyre living in ok let me turn to you. The trumpet ministration is saying this is very much about National Security and they argue that they have the right to take action when it comes to apps that are overreaching do you think this is about tech overreach or do you think that this has more political a more political subtext the there in the middle of a trade war with china and this is the u. S. Trying to store strong arm a better conditions for American Companies. Well you know i think i think this is entirely political but thats to say the motivation behind this decision from the trumpet ministration is entirely political we have we have this election coming up i think this sort of action certainly motivates many many people that maybe in the president s support base to show up and be active i think its the sort of thing that that. That energizes much of his followers. Hes taken a number of actions to instigate this this trade war with but china and i think i think this is only supports all that all of those measures now thats not to say that there is not a National Security risk here or i think hypothetically there could very well be and as mitch mentioned earlier. This both of these applications collect a lot of information and. We know of other Chinese Companies that do work very closely with the with the chinese authorities. And if in any way by dance or we reach out were were during any of that and i think. These 2 companies could very well be justifiably the. These 2 companies can very well be presenting a National Security risk to the United States but as much mentioned we just dont know that much the administration has not been very forthcoming with the circumstances do you think that this is a bites an administration would take steps to reverse this or is there is there a certain logic can take in this kind of action when it comes to privacy in the mag of data that apps collect. You know i think i think you by by i mean ministration would. Certainly come in and understood trying to understand where the trumpet ministration was coming from and since we dont know that right now the public does not know exactly how the trumpet ministration is analyzed and its this decision right now its hard for me to say what by ministration would potentially do but i imagine that it will try to. Develop a fair approach to this decision try to understand whether or not these 2 applications. Actually present on a serious National Security risk to the United States whether they actually they certainly collect a lot of information but are they are they profiling us users to the end of handing that information over to the Chinese Government that is something that by ministration would try to substantiate i imagine and and take a decision thereafter but it but it certainly wouldnt be or were the very raw political reasons that the Trump Administration is undertaking right now lets talk about its privacy and about Data Collection because its the Data Collection which appears to be the joy in force behind they span and sadly there have been studies done. Reverse engineering of what takes help does which shows they extensive the Data Collection which has caused reasonable concerns mitch stoltz. If i could ask you are you more states apps be doing should they not become lexing as much data because a lot of these social media apps such as Facebook Instagram twitter heaven knows what else their Business Model really is based on collect saying the most intimate data possible so whats the solutions of this. There are ways to support those Business Models that dont require collecting as much data as they do and even within the constraints of of this advertising based Business Model that involves targeting individual consumers all of these companies whether to talk or facebook or twitter can and do a whole lot more to collect only what they need and not retain that data longer than is needed those are missing the basic. Legal principles that i get have not been imposed in the United States outside of very specific contexts but probably should. More broadly you know you know theres there are a lot of questions about whether the behavioral targeting advertising based Business Model of some of these major web sites is the only way to do it and it may be that advertising may be just as valuable and just as strong of a way to support the businesses of these websites and apps without collecting that level of data and storing it forever because it does seem to be quite critical niche that because the Big Tech Companies were holed up in front of congress not that long ago and google and apple seem to be collecting terrific amounts of data on all their uses so this doesnt appear to be on the surface of it just about the Chinese Companies how much of a willingness is there within the American Congress certainly to actually tackle this issue not a whole lot right now. Particularly as regards American Companies but that could change there is a lot of Broad Movement towards guaranteeing more protections for internet years of privacy protections in particular of course europe has a strong set of privacy protections for internet news or is it depends but it turns out i think i think invite protect sector. Thats correct did the 2 or the 2 in any way insulate it is a tough problem. Crafting privacy rules that dont hamper Small Companies or favor the largest one is a difficult problem but its one that we really have to tackle and simply banning apps is not a very good way to do that and you could draw a. Pretty close parallel between ticktock and american apps like facebook the this move by the Trump Administration sort of bridges that last gap where they sort of become arms of the government because they are told what to do and not to do and im thinking here really of the app stores and apple and google the run app stores they are the targets of this executive order theyre being told you a private business cannot carry this app you cannot provide this particular set of of ones and zeroes to your users ok thats a whole lot like what we suspect trying to does with its companies so this makes us not all that much different from china and quite adolescent take a look at the impacts of this maze and what its likely to cheat money could say. Many of our viewers might not be familiar with we chat but it is quite a fundamental lot for many Chinese People im for the chinese diaspora give us a sense of just how important this sap ase to china chinese communities and will sort of impact do you think banning the sample humph. Oh that impact will be huge for chinese families who are separated people studying in the United States often is their only way of staying in touch with their families we chat you can imagine is like the key to your every day urban life in china today it is how you pay it is how you do business contacts how you talk to your friends how you order a cab how you do your groceries without we chat youre pretty much nowhere so although the app is not that popular in america the impact will still be be for those in america who depend on the we chat to talk with their parents or to receive money for example and how how do you think this this will play out because it sounds like theres an intentional wedge being driven between china and the u. S. Certainly the tick tock ban so has a few more days to see if this up will be sold with we chat this is coming it instantly and so how do you think chinese communities will see this will they see it like the u. S. Is government site to get them or or how do you think this will be entire proceeds. Oh yes you know a lot of people say this is a type of bullying and but all the also they say that america shooting itself in their own foot because it will also impact american businesses but what i saw today on chinese social media is that people were talking about 10 cent launching the we come app and from what i understood the we come app is like the we chat app but its registered under a d