 Let's run the, uh, the great clip that you have Zach from, uh, Buddy Carter, uh, congressman. There are those on this committee, including myself, who believe that the Chinese Communist Party is engaged in psychological warfare through TikTok to deliberately influence U.S. children. You know, you see behind me, if you'll look behind me, Mr. Crew, you see some of the challenges that we've seen on TikTok. You know about them. You know about the milk crate. You know about the, uh, about the blackout challenge. You know about the, uh, Nyquil chicken challenge, the Benadryl challenge. Do they have these same things over there? Do they have these kind of challenges? Uh, congressman, I'm really glad you asked this question. Do they? Yes or no? I'm not sure because. Oh, come on now. You're not sure? Really? I'm not sure. The milk crate challenge, which he's talking about, is from a 2016, 2017 Facebook challenge, the blackout challenge. That is a thing that 82 children died of between the years of 1995 and 2007 or eight, way before TikTok. The Benadryl thing, Good Morning America did an entire segment on that in 2002 because it was such a problem among teens. This is not, these are not TikTok challenges. And it's just so ridiculous to say they're doing psychological warfare. It's, you know, doubly stupid, right? Because these are not TikTok challenges in any meaningful way. And these are the kinds of moral panics that happen all the time. My favorite in this whole scheme of things, going back more, you know, a couple of decades was the Jankham challenge, which was, uh, I mean, it was made up, but it was the idea that, uh, you know, teenagers were fermenting their own urine and excrement and huffing it. And it, you know, a bunch of not surprisingly, uh, police departments, sheriff departments in Florida sent out advisories and it's, you know, it's a joke. I mean, it's like smoking banana strings or something like that in order to get high, uh, back in the sixties. So it's, it's wrong that way. But then the psychological component, this seems to be a very lively fear about TikTok because it's being directed by the Chinese government. And, you know, what they're doing is they're having our kids, you know, kill themselves on milk crates or choking each other or eating, you know, everything from chicken to impossible burger to whatever soak to Nyquil while Chinese kids on the equivalent of TikTok and TikTok does not exist in China in the same form. But they're doing, you know, they have calculus challenges. How much of this is just a recurring fear, uh, that gets expressed through new media? Yeah. I mean, it's total nonsense and it is a complete recurring fear. And I actually wrote a big feature about this stuff for the Atlantic years ago before TikTok even launched and it's so relevant because I used to, I spent years debunking all of this stuff related to YouTube. Um, and even Facebook, right? The Momo challenge was this thing was, you know, children were killing themselves because of this WhatsApp message. Um, these are all related to like playing into parents' worst fears, right? Parents see their kids spending new time on an app. They don't understand this new technology. Some police officer says, you know, oh, that's actually that could kill them. I mean, SNL famously did a skit, God, like nine or 10 years ago, mocking all of these, you know, fake teen moral panic news stories. But I think in the age of, you know, misinformation and all this stuff spreading all over, it's just, it's easy. The stuff has even, it's just, it's taken hold in a way that it never has before. And I think that's because TikTok, you can play into that China fear, right? It has that extra layer of like, you know, the Chinese. Let's play that clip from Kathy Rogers McMorris, who the Congresswoman from Washington State who maybe a decade ago was actually seen as an incredibly pro technology. She was part of a new wave of Republicans who were embracing the internet and, and all that, I promise. Let's run this clip real quick. Trust. TikTok will ever embrace American values, values for freedom, human rights and innovation. TikTok has repeatedly chosen the path for more control, more surveillance and more manipulation. Your platform should be banned. Have you seen any evidence that TikTok's algorithm is uniquely damaging as compared to YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and so forth? No. I mean, I was just dying in that testimony because we have seen time and time again Facebook, Twitter, you know, YouTube amplify, you know, horrible extremist content through algorithmically driven feeds and recommendation systems. That harm has been proven. That harm has not been as proven on TikTok. TikTok has very strict moderation guidelines for sure. You know, just the way that Facebook does, obviously there's things that you can upload. But, you know, the problems that they, when they're talking about TikTok, yes, algorithmic feeds have problems. Those are, those are problems across like all algorithmic feeds. That's the problem with optimizing for engagement that comes with certain problems. Those problems also appear on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. In fact, as we've seen, you know, those companies have been around longer, but we've seen a lot more damaging stuff come off out of those companies, which is why they're so eager to make TikTok the boogeyman. I've got a clip from Dan Crenshaw, who I represent from Texas, who I think summarizes the fears more succinctly than anyone else in this testimony. So I just like to play his summary here and get everyone's reaction to that. TikTok is able to collect massive amounts of personal data. We all know that. That means it could, if it desired, to use this data to influence narratives and trends, create misinformation campaigns, encourage self-destructive behavior, purposefully allow drug cartels to communicate freely and organize human and drug trafficking. And to be fair, all social media companies could do that. Here's the difference. It is only TikTok that is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. All these other social media companies are not, even if it is not happening yet, it could in the future. The long-term goal of the Chinese Communist Party is the demise of the American power, and that starts with our youth. At any moment, they could demand that all of TikTok's data be used to design an AI algorithm with the sole purpose of promoting Chinese interests and destroying our society from within. You want to know why Democrats and Republicans have come together on this? That's why we are so concerned. Man, I just hope that he brought an extra diaper because he just shit himself over the, you know, like, I mean, he's an AI algorithm just like trying to compute doomsday scenarios, right? Let's start first with the idea that the Chinese Communist Party is controlling TikTok in America. Is that plausible? I'm not a China expert. I think these things are good to interrogate, but there is no evidence of that. And, you know, I think we saw them correcting that type of misinformation. I think, I mean, I know that China experts, you know, have opinions about this, but there's just, we need proof, right? If we're going to be making laws and we need this, we don't have the smoking gun. It is what it is. You know, if that stuff existed, it would be a completely different conversation. As you'll note, what he says, what Crenshaw says many times, could, this could happen. This could happen. Sure, it could. A lot of things could happen, but we don't, we need to, we need evidence that it is happening or some sort of proof. Could you talk a little bit about how people actually use social media or programs or platforms like TikTok? Are they enslaved by it? Or do they actually do a pretty good job of regulating and moderating their views? I mean, I just think it's like any form of entertainment. Do people spend nine hours watching TV sometimes and binging TV? Yes. Do people play video games for 10 hours? Yes. Do people spend too much time on social media sometimes? Yes. This is entertainment as TikTok builds itself as an entertainment company. I don't know if it's the government's role to come in and regulate, you know, how much time we're spending on an entertainment platform. I just, that seems dystopian. I mean, sometimes you want to let loose and watch too much. I just think this is, you know, we need to be able to take some sort of personal responsibility here. I mean, we can't just, it's wild to me. And the way he's talking of, you know, as he mentions sort of flippantly, all social media companies can do that. Those things that he's listed, those examples he lists in the beginning, there is evidence that Facebook has done every single one of those things, right? There's evidence that YouTube has done every single one of those things. There's not evidence that TikTok has done those things. That was an excerpt from Reason's live stream with the Washington Post, Taylor Lorenz. If you want to watch another excerpt from this live stream or the whole thing, go here and here and come back every Thursday at 1pm Eastern time to Reason's YouTube channel and watch this live and participate, ask questions, and we'll get answers for you. Thanks for watching.