Podcaster Joe Rogan appeared to be astounded after going down a rabbit hole on TikTok’s privacy policy during his latest episode with comedian Theo Von released Tuesday.
“Oh my God! I read TikTok’s terms and services. I went down [a] TikTok rabbit hole yesterday. I stayed home, smoked a little weed, and started reading up on TikTok. Oh my God! I’m gonna read you this ’cause this is so crazy,” he said, apparently flabbergasted, in a clip posted to the official Joe Rogan Experience YouTube channel.
Von asked whether the experience was good or bad for Rogan, to which he immediately responded, “Bad!” Rogan read various articles from TikTok’s privacy policy to the comedian, including ones related to monitoring “keystroke patterns” and “audio settings.”
TikTok users essentially give the app the right to see what they’re typing, as well as to listen to them through the microphone of the device on which the app is downloaded, Rogan explained to Von. TikTok also collects information from the user’s device, including file names and types, he said in the clip, noting that the company is also able to get data from other user devices where the app isn’t downloaded. (RELATED: Joe Rogan Calls Big Tech Employees ‘Mentally Ill’; Companies ‘Like A Cult’)
“Do you think they did that — they created TikTok just on purpose to have all that,” Von asked Rogan. “A hundred percent,” Rogan replied. “I think they saw that people are addicted to social media and they came up with the most addictive version of social media, which is TikTok.”
Rogan noted that both his children and adults he knows are heavily addicted to TikTok.
“Just tell me how it ends, man!” Von said.
“It ends with China having all of your data,” Rogan responded. In this instance, Rogan said, “you’re fucked.” Rogan went on to describe China’s digital social currency, a topic he’s spoken on in the past. Watch the clip below to listen to more of Rogan’s terrifying explanation of China’s impact on its people and the United States: