TikTok deal is great for both national security and Oracle, says Intelligent Alpha's Doug Clinton - part 1/2
December 19, 2025 • 5m 24s
Andrew Ross Sorkin (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
00:00.070
tick
tock
reaching
a
deal
to
keep
operating
in
the
united
states
that's
going
to
a
memo
from
the
company
's
CEO
tick
tocks
US
algorithm
is
going
to
be
retrained
on
american
user
data
joining
us
right
now
to
discuss
this
clinton
founder
and
CEO
of
intelligent
alpha
good
morning
Andrew Ross Sorkin (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
00:13.910
to
you
we've
been
waiting
for
this
moment
for
quite
some
time
i
think
the
big
questions
around
this
is
how
is
this
fundamentally
changed
the
dynamic
is
it
actually
more
secure
Doug Clinton (Founder & CEO)
00:25.590
andrew
it's
been
five
years
in
the
making
almost
hard
to
believe
that
we've
finally
gotten
a
deal
here
with
tiktok
to
bring
its
algorithm
to
the
US
i
think
it
does
change
security
the
concern
has
always
been
about
where
does
the
user
data
lie
and
wherever
the
user
data
lies
Doug Clinton (Founder & CEO)
00:43.190
gives
a
lot
of
control
to
the
the
domicile
of
the
country
that
has
that
data
the
issue
has
been
that
china
has
had
the
data
and
whether
you
believe
it
or
not
they've
been
able
to
you
know
use
that
data
to
do
things
like
track
certain
people
in
the
US
there
have
been
many
reports
Doug Clinton (Founder & CEO)
01:00.230
about
that
this
deal
will
now
bring
all
of
that
data
to
the
US
on
oracle
servers
and
so
i
think
that
alleviates
a
lot
of
the
concerns
about
national
security
it's
a
great
deal
for
national
security
i
think
it's
also
a
really
good
deal
for
oracle
particularly
because
they
need
Doug Clinton (Founder & CEO)
01:15.470
something
to
change
the
narrative
for
them
right
now
because
it's
been
so
negative
around
the
AI
trade
do
Andrew Ross Sorkin (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
01:21.070
we
think
it's
going
to
change
the
dynamic
for
customers
in
terms
of
the
product
in
terms
of
how
this
ultimately
competes
for
example
against
facebook
or
against
youtube
or
anybody
else
Doug Clinton (Founder & CEO)
01:33.830
i
don't
think
it
changes
anything
there
i
think
that
we
will
continue
to
experience
tick
tock
in
the
same
way
on
the
margin
what
we
might
see
is
this
though
there
have
been
some
suggestions
that
tick
tock
in
the
US
shows
different
tick
tock
to
users
that
might
see
content
in
Doug Clinton (Founder & CEO)
01:50.430
china
and
so
maybe
on
the
margin
we
see
content
that
is
a
little
bit
less
you
know
controversial
or
maybe
a
little
less
political
that's
been
some
of
the
issues
i
think
we've
seen
in
the
twenty
twenty
and
twenty
twenty
four
elections
is
how
are
we
kind
of
seeing
content
from
Doug Clinton (Founder & CEO)
02:07.830
tick
tock
and
what
might
china
be
doing
to
influence
that
content
so
those
things
might
change
in
the
margin
but
as
it
pertains
to
competing
with
the
US
kind
of
existing
social
landscape
i
don't
think
this
will
Andrew Ross Sorkin (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
02:19.190
change
anything
but
let's
go
back
to
this
this
idea
of
i
think
what
you're
suggesting
is
that
the
chinese
government
or
others
are
influencing
the
algorithm
you
believe
that
the
these
new
US
partners
are
going
to
re
influence
the
the
algorithm
in
a
different
way
Doug Clinton (Founder & CEO)
02:36.070
i
think
they
will
treat
the
algorithm
much
like
facebook
meta
instagram
sort
of
treat
their
algorithms
youtube
a
similar
example
where
i
think
they're
going
to
focus
very
much
in
probably
almost
solely
on
what
does
the
user
want
to
see
where
are
they
going
to
stay
most
engaged
Doug Clinton (Founder & CEO)
02:53.350
versus
again
reports
would
suggest
that
maybe
some
of
the
algorithm
was
influenced
when
tiktok
US
was
under
chinese
control
in
terms
of
showing
a
little
bit
more
political
content
a
little
bit
more
Andrew Ross Sorkin (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
03:05.070
do
you
believe
that
that's
that
that's
a
real
question
do
you
do
you
believe
that
they
were
actually
that
the
chinese
ultimately
were
finagling
with
the
algorithm
or
do
you
believe
that
there
were
just
people
unfortunately
seeing
some
crazy
stuff
and
that
people
more
people
Andrew Ross Sorkin (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
03:22.870
click
on
the
crazy
stuff
and
therefore
they
feed
you
more
crazy
stuff
Doug Clinton (Founder & CEO)
03:27.390
yeah
andrew
for
me
it's
yes
and
yes
actually
i
think
both
of
those
statements
are
true
i
think
there
was
some
influence
from
the
chinese
government
it's
such
a
powerful
tool
when
you
have
a
a
social
media
application
that
influences
two
hundred
million
people
in
the
US
to
not
Doug Clinton (Founder & CEO)
03:43.830
use
that
would
almost
be
unbelievable
given
the
political
dynamics
between
our
countries
so
i
do
think
there
was
some
influence
but
i
also
think
what
you
said
is
also
true
on
all
of
these
social
platforms
there
are
extreme
voices
and
some
of
those
voices
get
attention
extremity
Doug Clinton (Founder & CEO)
03:59.870
has
always
gotten
attention
on
social
media
and
so
i
think
probably
the
balance
between
those
two
is
that
they
they
unfortunately
work
together
in
negative
ways
Andrew Ross Sorkin (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
04:10.400
i
would
say
for
the
US
think
that
there's
any
chance
i
mean
here
we
are
and
and
we're
speculating
that
you
know
the
chinese
government
is
is
organizing
the
algorithm
do
you
think
that
there's
any
chance
that
once
we
get
a
hold
of
this
if
you
will
similarly
to
maybe
the
way
elon
Andrew Ross Sorkin (Co-anchor of Squawk Box)
04:27.350
musk
got
a
hold
of
twitter
that
we're
going
to
find
out
actually
how
the
algorithm
was
tuned
in
specific
ways
afterwards
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