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00:00 Let's get some more analysis on this and I'm joined now by Bernard Benhamou who is the
00:04 Secretary General of the Institute of Digital Sovereignty. Welcome back to France 24. Good to have you with us again
00:09 You're also a lecturer on internet governance at Pontian Sorbonne University here in Paris
00:14 Question one why this ban on tick-tock in Montana?
00:18 Some lawmakers in the US want to
00:22 To have to take a stand against tick-tock after the hearing at the Senate
00:28 which was a very lively and
00:31 strongly opposed to tick-tock
00:34 So in a way they wanted to to be the first to create a momentum against tick-tock
00:40 which is seen as a threat in terms of security national security privacy and
00:46 which can be used by Chinese authorities and they
00:52 The tension between US and China the the tech Cold War as we call it now is becoming very
00:59 Present for the lawmakers Montana was the first maybe not the last
01:04 You mentioned one of the concerns namely that tick-tock could be harvesting user data could be spying on users
01:12 We don't know but it can also shape public discourse. Can't it? How influential is it?
01:17 at this moment they have had the
01:21 fastest growth of all social networks ever
01:25 They gather something like 1.5 billion users
01:30 So not only outside China in China. It's another name. It's do Yin, which is another name, but
01:37 basically, they have information on the taste the political opinions of
01:43 so many people that what we have been saying for a
01:49 Few a few months now. Is that for a Chinese regime?
01:53 Authorisa or authoritarian Chinese regime not using those data
01:58 for propaganda for political
02:01 Goals would be in in a way a sort of malpractice
02:05 They need to use those data
02:08 even if they claim they will not and they have been claiming it even if they have been surprised by some by using
02:16 Journalists information geolocation of journalists. They've been obliged to admit it publicly which was a
02:22 Big problem for them, but in a way
02:25 having so many
02:28 thousands of different
02:30 types of information on each user is
02:32 Indeed a temptation too high to be
02:35 discarded
02:38 With regards to this ban in Montana. I mean, it's not very easily enforced as it's not be a nightmare to enforce it
02:44 It will be a nightmare. There will be a lot of litigations and
02:47 Probably most journalists talking about this say that it will not be implemented anytime soon
02:55 But said January. Yeah, does that sound likely?
02:58 I will not bet on it. I will not bet on it
03:03 But what I know is that such companies especially in those times of tension between China and the US are
03:09 very very
03:11 Obsessed by the public image they have and such
03:15 Actions could
03:19 Modify their image and especially for investors not only for users
03:23 But for the global economic sector and they fear that more than the backlash of some users
03:30 If people watching are worried about their data privacy and so on using apps like tick-tock
03:36 are there any other apps that people perhaps might want to be cautious about using that could result in data falling into the wrong hands or
03:44 Could result in our narrative our social discourse being changed
03:49 Let's let's say that we have been informed in the past by the problems we had
03:53 globally with the social networks like Facebook which has been used and abused by some and
04:02 Gorgian that we talked about a lot lately have been vocal about saying we have been using that we will be using it to
04:08 Disrupt the elections in the West. So basically it exists. The problem with China is that the their agenda is
04:16 Invisible it's opaque and
04:20 They can use it in many ways to gather data to improve their own technologies and especially AI
04:27 Artificial intelligence which they want to create more AI than the US and that's a competition
04:33 They want to win AI which is at the G7
04:36 agenda today, so basically
04:39 there are many different levels of
04:42 Strategic thinking by the Chinese that that is different than
04:49 Social networks from the US or other countries, but in a way
04:53 The the gathering of so many personal information of so many people in a way is a problem somewhere
05:00 because it creates temptation to abuse those data for political reasons for
05:06 Economical reasons for security reasons as well
05:09 Do you think here in France or elsewhere in Europe people are looking at that ban in Montana?
05:15 And would you say it's perhaps a question of time before?
05:18 Perhaps we see something like that come into force here in France, for example in France
05:23 There is a Commission that I've been honored to to be to have a hearing in the French Senate
05:30 The European Commission has been banning
05:32 for all their
05:35 civil servants to use
05:37 Tick-tock the same is true for the public civil servants in France and most European countries are taking such measures
05:45 so in a way, is it possible that the actions by the
05:49 American lawmakers can
05:52 Convince European lawmakers to do a global ban in Europe. I
05:57 would say it's very early to say but in a way the security reason the privacy reasons and
06:03 obviously the political reasons of the political interference or
06:08 disruption or misinformation, whatever
06:12 Is something that is becoming present in all lawmakers mind somewhere in the deep thinking and just lastly
06:20 I mean in China, they can't really lament the fact that the West is banning
06:25 Their most famous app because of course a lot of the Western apps are not available there either indeed and it
06:33 I was talking about the fact that the tick-tock application is different. It's completely censored
06:39 It's completely oriented toward education not leisure law not movies
06:44 No, no
06:45 it's it's a serious application if I'm if I may say that and
06:48 Indeed, they do have such a strong an iron
06:53 fist on all the tech sectors that
06:57 Recently, they've been saying that even AI will have to answer to socialist
07:03 orientation in terms of politics so in a way
07:07 They are the last who can complain but they will
07:10 Obviously they will
07:12 Okay. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to explain all of that to us and Bernard Benham
07:16 Secretary-general of the Institute of digital sovereignty in France. Thank you very much indeed