Let's talk about the US ban on Tik Tok

Daniel (00:25.463)
That was like, from my end, like it sounded, it sounds good every time I hear it, it sounds good, but also why is she yelling at me? It's like, it was like the kindest, aggressive introduction.

Projektitachi (00:32.773)
Hahahaha

Projektitachi (00:41.049)
Yeah, you know, but on my end, it wasn't it wasn't it's never it's never that loud. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another week of the Jeezy Chop podcast. I am your host, Project Hitachi, joined by my good friend and co-host, Wardeners. And we have an amazing episode lined up for you this week as we discuss the impending tick tock ban.

Daniel (00:45.923)
It must be my settings. I must be the problem here. So loud.

Projektitachi (01:05.937)
And we're also going to discuss the advancements of VR, Sony's VR, where it seems to be in a little stale spot and what they could possibly do to help improve its sales and some of the things that they are looking at. So without further ado, let's just jump into it. Let's just discuss the elephant in the room. TikTok is in some hot water for those who don't know, which I think at this point, if you're on social media, everybody knows it's like, there's no way people don't know unless you've been living under a rock.

The US government wants to ban TikTok here in the United States. They deem it a security risk, a threat to national security. Basically, they feel that at any given moment, the company that owns TikTok could sell its users' data to the Chinese government if the Chinese government came to them and said, we want the American data.

the American government has no say or any legal recourse they could take to prevent that so they see it as a national security issue and therefore they want to ban it. But the proposal that they have pitched to TikTok is, hey, sell it and then we won't ban it. Basically saying sell it to us and then we won't ban it. And

I will admit I get the national security aspect. I 100% get that. And I don't disagree that it is a...

logical concern, but let's not pretend that that's the real reason. In my personal opinion, that is my personal opinion. It's a good argument to get people on your side. That's the whole thing. That's like when you're in debate team, that's the first thing they teach you. Make your argument so sound that everyone agrees with you. That's how debates are won.

Daniel (03:09.771)
I think they'd have a better argument if our government had ever done anything on our end for us and our rights and our privacy and our data and information and to protect us against our own social medias. I think the case would make more grounds with the American people and people would be more willing to get behind it. But when you're doing nothing.

to protect people from social media in your own country. And then you're crying foul on someone else when the very owner and the business itself isn't even technically Chinese owned to begin with, which is a whole other thing. Like, what are you getting at? I don't understand it.

Projektitachi (04:00.589)
And it's not even like we're saying to ourselves because let's not forget that Facebook had their big leak with like millions of their user base data leaked. Yeah, they wound up just paying like a 700 over $700 million fine.

Daniel (04:11.935)
Yeah, and didn't they just get like a slap on the wrist? It was just like a big ass fine.

Daniel (04:19.419)
Millions millions you multi-billion dollar tens of billions a dollar company They got a 700 million dollar fine. That sounds about right. That's like that's like me getting a parking ticket

Projektitachi (04:26.929)
And then. And earlier this year, and this is from CNN.com, earlier this year, it came to light that the U.S. government agency itself routinely buys the sensitive digital data of Americans from the largely unregulated data broker market that data that would otherwise require a warrant to obtain. So they play dirty as well.

Daniel (04:33.397)
Fuck outta here.

Projektitachi (04:54.105)
yet they're focused on TikTok, which this is why I say it's a sound argument because it's not wrong what they're saying, but it's also not the point. They're just using that as the grounds for their argument. And yeah. So, uh, Darren Soto basically said, TikTok needs to be an American company.

Daniel (05:12.847)
why we do ultimately the same thing with our same companies.

Projektitachi (05:23.505)
with American values.

Daniel (05:24.471)
I'm going to go to bed.

Because we know what happens when American companies with American values own and or purchase a bunch of other businesses depending on their umbrella. Right? Let's look at Microsoft and everything that they've destroyed that they fucking purchased. And that's just one big example.

Projektitachi (05:42.609)
No, yeah. Yeah. I had a feeling when this first came to light, because this isn't the first time that TikTok has been on the radar, but this is the first time the ban has gotten this far. Before it was just a meme, but now it's actually getting momentum and some states already have banned it, other states have partially banned it. It's gaining a lot of momentum and it's looking like it's not a matter of if, but when, because they've given TikTok about six months to either sell

Daniel (05:56.297)
Yeah.

Projektitachi (06:12.749)
or get banned. And the reason I say, yes, you're talking about national security and that is a viable point, but that's obviously not the real reason you care is because banning it is not the answer. Implementing strict rules and conditions to the company would be the answer. Look, we're about protecting our citizens' data. So we need to see your security system. We need to see your protocol before

Daniel (06:41.623)
Right.

Projektitachi (06:41.757)
we allow our citizens access to your platform. Banning it is basically a petty move. And the reason I say it's a petty move is because I'm gonna call a spade a spade. Now, everything we said before is pretty much fact. Now this is from here on my opinion. My personal opinion, I wanna be very clear to our listeners. This is my opinion, just based off of my experiences on social media, what I think the real reason this TikTok, TikTok ban.

is happening. Yeah, it's a bunch of many hearings. Tic Tacs.

Daniel (07:12.355)
You've been watching too many of those hearings. Don't tic tacs. Tic tac toe. Fuck.

Projektitachi (07:18.941)
The end.

Daniel (07:22.839)
This is fucking Herod's bro.

Projektitachi (07:23.889)
man that's another reason i can't take it seriously it's like those like those hearings they get so ridiculous anyway i literally think this is a petty pissing contest tiktok is a phenomenal social media platform it took the world by storm it came out of nowhere and then it conquered and it is not american-owned and we all know

Let's just be honest, the American mentality is to own everything. If it's in, we have to own it.

Daniel (07:58.579)
Yeah, it almost feels like we're not about innovation anymore or hard work. We're just about buying shit out.

Projektitachi (08:02.097)
We buy the innovation, yeah. We buy the innovation and then we slap our label on it and say, it's ours. What Netflix does. But what I think the real problem is, is meta.

Daniel (08:09.506)
Oh, so what Netflix does.

Projektitachi (08:18.357)
I'm literally calling out Metta because Metta is the flagship of American social media. They own WhatsApp. They own Snapchat. They obviously on Instagram. They own Facebook. They own a whole plethora of a majority of the American social media platform. When TikTok took the world by storm, what did Instagram do? They immediately copied the formula in hopes of bringing back.

the American user base. It didn't work. The problem also is a lot of content creators left Instagram and blew up on TikTok in a way they could not.

Daniel (09:01.503)
The algorithm, I don't think anyone truly understands the algorithm, but whatever it is, it seems to really have benefited a far larger amount of people than American-owned social media companies.

Projektitachi (09:16.741)
Yeah. And that's, that's a huge point for, especially for us. Cause look at us, even for us, we were putting out stuff constantly on Instagram and Instagram was not letting anyone see it. Unless we had a big bank account and willing to pay for promotion, our stuff went nowhere. We were actually thinking, man, maybe people don't like our stuff, but that wasn't it because we would put the same content out on Tik TOK and we would hit hundreds, if not thousands of views and look at our user base.

The numbers don't lie. We have doubled the amount on TikTok than we do on Instagram. And a lot of influencers have millions on TikTok compared to thousands on Instagram. The Instagram algorithm does not favor budding or small creators. It is designed to cater to a very specific type of media.

Daniel (09:52.864)
Right.

Daniel (09:57.26)
Yep.

Daniel (10:14.548)
Did we get outcapitalismed? Is that what happened? Did another outside company, non-American, outcapitalism us? Because it kind of seems that's what happened. And it looks like our government took that personally.

Projektitachi (10:17.745)
Yeah.

Projektitachi (10:27.368)
Mm-hmm.

Projektitachi (10:30.745)
And what's happened, and they did, they 100% took it personally because they are watching the numbers on their platform leave dwindle. Instagram is built for keeping you on that platform, 100% built to keep you on that platform. The purpose is defeated if you're like, okay, I'm sick of Instagram, now I'm on TikTok, and you spend twice as much time on TikTok asking for your Instagram, they're not making money off of that. That's why they want them to sell.

because there's no way for the American government or any company to make money off of TikTok the way they could with Instagram.

Daniel (11:11.423)
Yeah. And look, look at what Facebook is now. Facebook is hot garbage, dude. Like nobody goes to Facebook anymore to have fun or make content. The only types of people you're going to find on Facebook are like old, angry, pissed off, mostly Republicans somehow. Like just, just upset people.

Projektitachi (11:24.183)
Angry.

Projektitachi (11:32.881)
So ultimately that's what I really think it comes down to. It's a very, like I said, it's a very valid concern of national security, but that's every social media platform. That's every single one. Ours is not any better.

Daniel (11:46.891)
Yeah, it's just cherry picking something just because it's not American owned is what they're doing.

Projektitachi (11:49.761)
Exactly. I promise you the security issues would remain if TikTok said, okay, fine. We'll sell to America. If anything, it would be, I'll tell you right now what would happen if we got, if America owned TikTok, the algorithm would turn to garbage. They would make sure that every small creator is again, suppressed. There'd be a ton. There's a, because you know, there's ads on TikTok, but they're mostly other creators promoting their product.

Daniel (12:05.94)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel (12:10.303)
Oh, there'd be ads. There'd be ads.

Daniel (12:18.847)
It is it is it's like a more it's a like a content an innovative content creation Sort of situation like they give the power to the content creator to do the advertising instead of you being forced To watch you know two or three short clips that you don't want to watch and then telling you if you don't want to watch ads pay ten dollars a month, which I love YouTube, but it's

One of the few things about YouTube I don't like that they've kind of leaned into over the years.

Projektitachi (12:51.565)
And it's a lot of these big companies. And at this point, people should realize these big companies have a say in government. They have the huge purses. They walk in with their big purses. They slam it on the table. And they say, make problem go away. And the government goes, well, they came in with the check. All right, how do we pick a fight?

Daniel (13:27.854)
Yeah, you

Projektitachi (13:37.637)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel (13:45.879)
that has spoken on TikTok. Now, mind you, there's a handful of people that I, regardless of like Republican or Democrat, like I respect, I feel like they're, regardless of their political affiliation, I feel I respect them. I feel like they're very intelligent and well-spoken. But for the most part, a lot of them are just old ass people who make no sense. And it's like they're getting up here on their platform, the platform of politics, and talking about things that are beyond them now. And making decisions.

on things that won't affect them when they fucking croak in 15-20 years.

Projektitachi (14:19.557)
And the other thing is half of them use TikTok themselves.

Daniel (14:24.728)
Yeah, yeah, there's that too.

Projektitachi (14:25.357)
Half of them, so what are they gonna, are they not gonna use it themselves? Did they cut some kind of, are they gonna have some shady dealing where their phone can use it?

Daniel (14:33.676)
I don't know. And it's not like anger. I don't feel angry about it. I'm not particular about social media myself. I have Instagram and TikTok and YouTube. I'm mainly on YouTube. There's a lot of awesome shit. I think I've just been into YouTube since it came out. I'm getting old. But.

Whether or not TikTok goes away for whatever reason it goes away isn't really my concern. Again, I don't care. Social media is whatever. It's the reasoning behind it. And to me, doing the same thing to your own people that other countries do, mainly communist countries do to their people while trying to hide under the umbrella of safety and protection is

the height of deception. It's ridiculous. And it's no wonder that people have completely lost hope and respect for our own country.

Projektitachi (15:27.037)
Yeah.

Projektitachi (15:37.541)
Yeah, my I 100% think that the other reasonings behind this are not as. I guess you could say straightforward. They they're using the security as the main argument point, but that's not the only reason. Really, because.

Daniel (15:53.387)
You're right. Yeah.

Daniel (16:04.739)
And what is everyone for the most part in politics, right? For the most part, they're all some form of professional, they're professional debaters, right? And lawyers. They're good at lying and manipulating data and facts to turn things in their favor and get the results they want.

Projektitachi (16:24.689)
Yeah. Yeah, people are very good at, you know.

Daniel (16:28.971)
And what kind of lawyer do you trust? The only lawyer you trust is the lawyer you pay a lot of money for to protect you. You're not, we're not paying them. We want to feel like we are because we pay taxes right? But we're not. It's the people behind the scenes writing fucking checks, owning companies, people who really, you know, quote unquote matter in the country, as far as the economy goes and the political situation. And they're the ones that are

Projektitachi (16:34.363)
Yeah.

Projektitachi (16:40.338)
Yeah.

Daniel (16:59.043)
Throwing a fit. Facebook meta.

Projektitachi (17:00.022)
Yep. Yeah. The big time investors, those are the ones you need to look at. The big time investors. But definitely a rabbit hole we could go down. If you guys want to hear more on this topic from us, go check out our Patreon, patreon.com forward slash OSN media, where we do the Afterthoughts After Dark podcast, where we are more than likely going to dive into this even more. And let us know your thoughts.

And actually, on a positive note, just so you guys know, the GZ Chop Shop Podcast officially has its own designated website now. So if you guys wanna leave your comments or a voice clip that could be played in a future episode, you can do that right now. Go to gzch Every episode of our podcast is available there.

You're able to leave comments, send in voice clips, rate the episodes, your favorite episodes, interact with the community, and join our email list so you guys can get bonus content, promo codes, tons of other stuff. It's our new website. So go and check it out, everything in one nifty place, gzch OK, moving on to our next topic. Sony.

I love Sony. I love Sony and as much as we've done episodes on the show, everyone who's listened knows I'm no stranger to ragging on Microsoft because they just make it too easy. They make it too easy. But in this case, I got to, I'm going to flip it around and this might shock some people. I'm about to rag on Sony and give a head nod to Microsoft and that does hurt me in my soul a little bit. But

You know, when you do something good and you do something right, I got to give you props on it. So what I'm speaking about is the virtual reality space. Now, the PlayStation VR to launched last year, and it is a powerful VR headset. I have one. I love it. It's great. However.

Projektitachi (19:15.269)
And I don't know if you knew this, Sony has stopped manufacturing them right now until they can figure out a way to clear out their warehouses. Ha ha ha.

Daniel (19:24.652)
I did hear about this. I read about it a couple days ago.

Projektitachi (19:25.881)
Yeah, they don't know how to clear out their warehouses right now. And...

Daniel (19:32.009)
Did they make too many or are they having a hard time selling them because how much they are and maybe the economy? Because they are pricey.

Projektitachi (19:33.673)
They're having a hard time selling them. Yeah, they're very pricey. It's $549 and the MetaQuest 3 just dropped for I wanna say almost $100 less, maybe $50 less. And it's a self-contained VR slash AR headset now that's less bulky and.

Daniel (19:43.651)
God damn.

Projektitachi (20:01.045)
has a ton of features and of course the metaverse has been being built on over the last few years so it's a fully expansive you know VR experience you can take that out the box and you're good to go you can just set it up and you're good to go as compared to the vr2 you know you get one game that comes with it and outside of that there's not much else you can do with it um and sony is very

self-contained, they're trying to be, I don't know if it's a Japanese company kind of thing, but they pretty much all keep to themselves. Like Nintendo does their own thing and Sony does their own thing. And there's not a lot of VR2 games out for, well, the VR. And that's where they're struggling. People can't justify purchasing unless you're a collector or just...

into it like I am.

Daniel (20:59.831)
Can you not use the VR1? Like the games for the VR1? Why not?

Projektitachi (21:02.322)
Nope.

unless you buy the adapter, you have to buy a specific adapter in order to play the VR1 games on the VR2, which means more money spent, and it's not an expensive part, I think it's like $20 at most, but that's already $20 extra on top of the 550 you spent on top of the 500 you spent on the console. So we're looking at enough to buy a gaming PC at this point. So a lot of people are like, okay.

Daniel (21:31.87)
Right.

Projektitachi (21:34.177)
It's one of the most powerful VR systems out there right now, but the MetaQuest 3 is wireless. The VR 2 still has a cable.

Daniel (21:48.551)
The realism of the wireless with the Meta, how good is it compared to the cable usage? Because I know with high-power tech, cable tends to just work better and more fluently and get better results. So what is the MetaQuest doing? How's the quality of it through Wi-Fi?

Projektitachi (22:02.966)
Mm.

Projektitachi (22:12.309)
I will say, which I, and here's a fun fact, if you're working on a budget, you don't have to jump out and buy a MetaQuest 3. If you have the Quest 2, the updates do apply to the Quest 2. I actually just booted up my Quest 2 this past weekend. I did all the updates and they've added Steam Link, which kudos to you Steam for finally implementing that, cause I will tell you, setting up the virtual desktop to use my...

system wirelessly or connected to my computer, play my VR games, was such a pain in the butt. But now I can play my VR PC games completely wireless. I actually tested it out. I went downstairs, I had my computer on, I went downstairs and I started playing Half-Life Alex on my Quest 2. And the wireless connection was solid. I didn't have any lag, I didn't have any stutter. It felt like just as good as when I was plugged directly into my computer.

So with a decent enough distance, like not too far, I think the Quest, and I'm assuming even with the Quest 3 it's even better, the wireless connectivity for streaming your PC games VR was flawless for me. Now you do need a good router. I have a very specific router. I have a very specific gaming router that I bought. Yes. Yeah.

Daniel (23:38.951)
Netgear? Yeah, Netgear is the way to go people. Netgear.

Projektitachi (23:42.201)
So my router is built for this. Just want to be clear on that. If you don't, if you're using your internet provider stock router, you're probably gonna have a completely different experience. And I don't want you guys coming back saying, the Jeezy Chop Shop podcast lied to me. I have a very specific router for gaming, which has probably helped make it work. But my experience with the Quest 2 was fine, flawless, perfect, beautiful.

Daniel (24:09.975)
You ever notice that net gear net gear reminds me of something like that would be in the world of a body like a bionicle Those those like robotics and stuff. It's just I don't know. It just looks like something that would be out of that world

Projektitachi (24:17.094)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Projektitachi (24:24.257)
Um, as for the VR 2, I feel the overall quality in game, it looks far superior. The Quest games, they have a little bit of fuzz to them where the VR 2 it's crisp, it's sharp, it's immersive. It's visually stunning in my personal opinion.

Daniel (24:44.231)
I remember playing a, cause I've, I've messed with the VR. I don't, I don't know if it was the VR one or two. But I played Resident Evil. I think it was eight on it. And it was, it was pretty, it was pretty bad ass. It was pretty realistic.

Projektitachi (25:06.109)
So my only suggestion would be to the Sony, cause they're looking at making the headset usable on PC to make it appeal to PC gamers. A lot of people do like the controller and they have it. So it is a better controller for VR. I personally do like the controller because of the haptic feedback and it just feels better in the hand than the Quest controller. I would say...

they should look at to opening their doors to allow some of the PC VR games to port over to the Sony store. That would be a mutually beneficial move for them. Make the headset interchangeable to be used on PC, allow the PC games to be ported over to the Sony ecosystem, and then you would make those sales. Because not only can people get a powerful headset that doesn't demand extra accessories, but the game library is not interchangeable.

That would probably help them out a lot in my personal opinion. So, but you guys, let me know what you think. Do you have a Sony VR to headset? Do you use it? Are you part of the VR ecosystem? What are your some of your favorite VR games? We would love to hear from you guys. And maybe we can actually hit you guys up in the metaverse. I don't actually explore the metaverse that much, but I'm thinking about diving into it to see what the big hoopla is about it as they've been making expansions, which, by the way,

My kudos to Microsoft when adding Xbox Cloud Gaming to the VR headset. I got to say, that's a big power play, being able to grab your controller, put on your quest and play your Xbox Game Pass games. So. That's a pretty badass move. Now, if you have Steam Link, I don't it's kind of redundant, but if you just use Xbox, then it's a it's really good, really convenient.

Daniel (26:42.924)
Yeah.

Daniel (26:49.075)
Yeah, that is. That actually is pretty badass.

Projektitachi (27:02.209)
So I say that's pretty awesome. And Sony, I would say maybe add remote play so people who are on a budget could access some of your games. I don't know, I don't know, but that would be my suggestion. I guess they wouldn't do that because they have their own VR headset. But I just say, yeah, make the games interchangeable, port over to PC games, and make sure to let the headset be used on PC. And I think they would sell their backlog easily. But anyway.

That's all the time we've got for this episode. Don't forget, guys, make sure to check out our new website, gzch for all of our latest episodes. Also check out our YouTube channel. Link will be in the website. And see, at the end of this episode, I can never talk. Visit our store, osnmediashop.com, for your exclusive podcast, merch, gift ideas, and more. Anyway, we're out of here. You guys have been amazing. Take care of yourself and each other, and we'll catch all you wonderful people.

on the next podcast. Later.