April 26, 2024
ALI MOORE: James Paterson is a Liberal Senator for Victoria and the Shadow Minister for Cyber Security and Home Affairs. James Paterson, welcome.
JAMES PATERSON: Great to be with you, Ali.
MOORE: Does the Congressional law around TikTok and the 12 months to sell or be banned make sense to you?
PATERSON: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense to me because TikTok is an unusual application. It's wildly popular in countries like Australia and the United States. We think we have about 8 million users in Australia. But it's uniquely beholden to a foreign authoritarian government. And it's been identified in the past suppressing content which is sensitive to that government, which is the Chinese Communist Party. And it's also been exposed misusing the data of users that are on the app in the past, and even lying about it. So it does represent a serious national security risk. So much so that on the advice of our national security agencies, we've already banned it from all federal government devices. You cannot have it on your phone if you're a public servant. But at the moment, there's no protection for every other Australian out there.
MOORE: The issue I guess though, is that they've said you've got 12 months to sell it. Now, we spoke to a TikTok creator based in the US. She was in actual fact, protesting outside Congress when the vote went through. Just have a quick listen to Tiffany Cianci.
TIFFANY CIANCI: [CLIP] China has proprietary laws that protect their technological proprietary products to non-Chinese entities, just like America has laws that ban us from selling proprietary types of information in our defence contracts. And so they really have laws in China that would prevent them from selling to a non-Chinese entity.
MOORE: That's Tiffany Cianci. She's a TikTok creator and very much protesting against this law. James Paterson she does make a point there, doesn't she? How likely is it that they would sell?
PATERSON: She's very informed about the proprietary laws of China for a random TikTok creator.
MOORE: I get the impression she's not a random TikTok person. I can tell you that she's very, very involved in advocating for those who make their living off TikTok.
PATERSON: Yeah, and I think we should take voices like that with a little bit of a grain of salt. I mean, it's perfectly reasonable for countries to set the conditions under which foreign companies operate in. We do it all the time. For example, if a Chinese company proposed to buy a media organisation in Australia, like a television station, that would be reviewed by the Foreign Investment Review Board, and I guarantee you there's no way they would approve it. And yet, right now, we have the number one source of news and information about the world for young people in Australia being controlled by an authoritarian government. And it's a government which happens to be our number one source of foreign interference risk, espionage risks and state backed cyber security risk. So it is a very serious thing, and something has to be done about it. And there's a choice available here to ByteDance: sell the company and gain a multi-billion dollar payday, some estimates this company could be valued up to $160 billion. Or face the reality that you're going to lose a business internationally, or at least in the United States.
MOORE: Can you see a buyer in the U.S.? Do you reckon there would be one?
PATERSON: I think they'll be lining up. I think it's a highly profitable business and innovative business and there has been a number of consortiums that have already started to put together bids for this in anticipation of the legislation passing.
MOORE: And if that if that happened, what would that mean? It would mean you'd have different TikToks, wouldn't it? You'd have one in the US and one everywhere else.
PATERSON: That's right. That's the real risk here and that's why I think it's important that Australia follows suit here. And I'm calling on the Albanese government to pass similar legislation, because otherwise you might have a version of the app in America which is safer because it doesn't have the Chinese Communist Party's control over it. And you'll have a more dangerous version of the app elsewhere in the world, including in Australia, because we will have done nothing to deal with this. I mean, ultimately, I want to get to a situation where users can safely use TikTok and be assured that their data is being protected, that there's no foreign interference on the platform, the propaganda is not being promoted there. But if we do nothing, you can't have that guarantee.
MOORE: The other issue that we've been talking about this week, of course, and you too, is the issue of X and Elon Musk and the class one material and the extended injunction in court, this vision of the stabbing of the Sydney Bishop. Do you agree with Peter Dutton that, the demands for the global removal of the footage are silly? That was the word that he used. He said Australia can't be the internet police of the world.
PATERSON: Yes, I completely agree with him. I mean, imagine the precedent that that would set if the Australian government can choose what is allowed on X in other countries, does that mean that other countries can decide what is on X in Australia? Does that mean
that the Iranian government or the North Korean government or the Russian government get to decide what our users get to access? I mean, Australian laws apply in Australia. It doesn't apply everywhere else.
MOORE: Do you think that's what the eSafety commissioner is effectively trying to do with the court case?
PATERSON: I'm concerned that that would be the legal effect of the court case. The eSafety commissioner is on strong ground saying Australian law doesn't permit this abhorrent violent content when we passed those laws under our government previously, for good reason, because we didn't want things like the Christchurch massacre to be broadcast to Australians for all the obvious reasons why. So we are on very strong ground to ask for that, but we're not on strong ground if we're asking for it to apply to other countries.
MOORE: I guess though, the issue is that you can have it removed but that's very easily circumvented, so many people use virtual private networks. Is that just a fact of life that we have to accept that you can't, that you essentially can't ban something. You can't remove something. You can't control beyond the border?
PATERSON: I guess if that's your argument then your argument is against VPNs, it's not against X or any other website, because the reality is Australian law does not apply all around the world. We can't force other countries to do what we ask them to do. That's for them to decide. And I'd encourage them to consider doing it, because I think it's a good thing to prevent horrific, violent material being accessible. But that's up to them. And VPNs do exist, that's the reality. They are accessible and people do use them. And so there are some limits on what governments can do, and we should be honest about that.
MOORE: And well in fact, that really is a very big limit, isn't it? It really changes things substantially. I mean, if you look at the safety legislation, it doesn't really address the issue of VPNs at all, does it? So do we just have to accept that we can require content to be hidden from Australian viewers, but anyone who has a non-defined or non-geo-located VPN will just be able to see it?
PATERSON: Well, the truth is that it's not only VPNs that allow Australians to evade it, it's there are websites that simply are not hosted onshore in Australia and don't comply with Australian law - dubious websites that people can find that have this content. We've never succeeded in getting that kind of content off those websites. And there's also other types of internet access, like the dark web, which really is an unregulated environment, and no attempt has been successful to shut that down either. So that's the reality. People can evade these restrictions if they want to. The truth is though, the vast majority of Australians do not have VPNs and wouldn't know the first thing about how to access the dark web. And so we should still seek to limit the damage of this kind of content, but accept that there are limitations on governments in the internet era.
MOORE: Just, going back to the issue of TikTok, and I've got a text here saying, does the Liberal Party support small business because small business uses TikTok? With your call to introduce legislation like the US, does that mean that if TikTok is not sold to a domestic player, you would ban it? And what would that mean for all of those who rely on TikTok to make a living?
PATERSON: Well, my first preference is that it not be banned, that it'd be safe to use and people continue to use TikTok.
MOORE: But you have no control over that?
PATERSON: Well, if ByteDance chooses not to sell TikTok, then it's them that's damaging small business in Australia. I want them to continue to be able to use it. But the truth also is, that there are alternatives to TikTok. There are other social media platforms which offer similar services, and plenty of content creators in Australia make plenty of money on those other platforms as well.
MOORE: So you'd say that if you ban TikTok, no one would lose their living?
PATERSON: Well, I'm saying we shouldn't need to come to that. TikTok should just comply with the laws proposed in the United States, and if it passed here in Australia as well.
MOORE: Final question, James Paterson, have you read Scott Morrison's book?
PATERSON: No, I haven't.
MOORE: Are you aware, obviously, of the bits that have been released so far to The Australian newspaper and the revelation that he was treated for anxiety?
PATERSON: Yeah, I thought that was a very honest thing for him to do, to talk about, such a recent experience and such a profound experience of depression. And it is a reminder that mental health affects everyone, even the Prime Minister and particularly at significant times for our country, like the Covid crisis.
MOORE: Were you aware of that at the time? Was any key members of government aware of it at the time?
PATERSON: I was not, and I can't speak to others state of knowledge. I observed Scott Morrison bearing remarkably well with the pressure that he was on. Plenty of people have second guessed the decisions that he's made since, but at the time he was dealing with an extraordinary uncertain environment and making extraordinary decisions under pressure. And I think he did his best and was sincerely motivated to do his best for our country at the time.
MOORE: You're not linking the treatment for anxiety with some of the decisions that were made?
PATERSON: No, not at all.
MOORE: Have you ever felt that sort of clinical level of anxiety in the job that you've had?
PATERSON: No, not me personally. But I haven't held the great state of the office of Prime Minister, and it's impossible to know what that would be like unless you did experience it. But public life is a stressful experience. It's a great privilege to do what we do as parliamentarians. But there are times when you face really difficult choices, choices between your conscience and what your party might want you to do, or what the media or others expect you to do. And they are really difficult things you have to reflect on deeply.
MOORE: James Paterson, thank you very much for talking to us.
PATERSON: Thanks Ali.
ENDS
