this is not the first time tiktok has been in the sights of lawmakers in the united states. ~ ., , of lawmakers in the united states. ~ . , ., , , of lawmakers in the united states. . . , ., , , ., states. what is happening at the moment? states. what is happening at the moment? well, - states. what is happening at the moment? well, sally, i states. what is happening at - the moment? well, sally, tiktok is chinese owned. and it is one of the fastest social media platforms growing in the united states with more than 100 million active users in the us and this gives it enormous power that slides on the radar of us official since the radar of us official since the trump presidency. we note the trump presidency. we note the state level, some local governments have moved to ban their workers from installing it on their phones and more recently last month the head of the fbi expressed concern, saying it could be used by beijing to collect user data and to ultimately conduct an influence op
strategy is to fight a long war. hurt the civilian infrastructure in ukraine, and try to erode public support. both in ukraine and across nato. bret: i have read this report. and part of it, to your point about cyber enabled influence operations to seek and fuel real world discord across europe, it says: russia s active measures approach involves infiltrating the constituencies of kremlin adversaries while elevating candidates and officials who share russia s preferred foreign policy positions. russia has a well established ability to sway public opinion both in the u.s. and europe through cyber enabled influence operations. so you are seeing that realtime. we we absolutely are seeing this in realtime. we see it in multiple countries. it really have a global effort. it s easy to see how the russian military is putting all of these tactics together. if they can erode electricity and heat in ukraine, they can
them up, you just see garbage. and twitter s dealt . with that in the past. but it was a different - twitter two months ago. just to remind your listeners, elon musk bought the thing l a month ago now almost exactly. and the staff has gone - from 7500 down to ballpark, 2000 people. and unfortunately, within that are a lot of the experts - on foreign influence - operations, propaganda, spam and other techniques. so they were just. and a lot of their language . specialists, so they were just ill equipped to deal with it. i suppose the reason why all this matters, though, when it comes to china is that, you know, in the past, information found on social media has been really crucial, really key to other civil uprisings. yes. and i think that fact is not lost on the chinese leadership. and president xi himself talked about the dangers of the jasmine revolutions
and of course, xinjiang, just to remind our listeners, is where, you know, we know the bbc has reported about camps full of uighur muslims, where oppression is going on. right. and they ve also used the sort of adult content technique against individuals in the past. so mentions of a specific person or a tweeting at a person with all this garbage, so that if you hear about somebody, a protester or somebody said something critical and you re looking them up, you just see garbage. and twitter s dealt with that in the past. but it was a different twitter two months ago. just to remind your listeners, elon musk bought the thing a month ago now, almost exactly. and the staff has gone from 7,500 down to, ballpark, 2,000 people. and unfortunately, within that are a lot of the experts on foreign influence operations, propaganda, spam and other techniques. so they were just. and a lot of their language