Return to Transcripts main page
First Move with Julia Chatterley
Bank Shares Fall Five Days after UBS-Credit Suisse Deal; Canadian PM: We Need to Ensure we're not Vulnerable; Kheiron CEO: AI can look at a Couple Million Cases a Year; King Charles' Visit to France Postponed as Unrest Continues; TikTok Review Sends Chocolatier's Website into Meltdown; Lawmakers Question CEO on Relationship with Douyin. Aired 9-10a ET
Aired March 24, 2023 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN HOST, FIRST MOVE: A warm welcome to the program, great to have you with us. TGIF truly, TGI Fast and Furious week on "First
Move", in many respects T is for TikTok rocked the CEO of the popular apps socked during a bipartisan battering on Capitol Hill.
His privacy promises were mocked, and lawmakers made it clear they want it blocked. What's next for the app and its 150 million American users that
are coming up? G, in the meantime, full global banks fresh worry in their ranks it's Deutsche Bank. Now under the spotlight, the cost of buying
insurance against a Deutsche Bank default jumped to four year highs earlier today.
Other European banks under pressure as well, we'll discuss. I, in the meantime for insurance, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen clarifying that
comment about possible broader backing for big depositors in the U.S she's now promising to do more if necessary. To me it sounds like repetition, I'd
argue her position didn't change them and it hasn't changed.
Now a tempest in a treasury teapot perhaps in the meantime, F is for Fed Funds fate Jay Powell warning that tighter credit conditions may limit
lending and negate the need for more rate hikes. We heard this on Wednesday too. An unprecedented degree of uncertainty for the U.S. Central Bank, as
it continues the inflation fight.
TGIF for fatigue may be what stock market investors are feeling today. We have a sea of red as you can see, across U.S. futures and across the
European markets, they're the underperformers. Here's a look at some more banking blues, Deutsche Bank leading the declines currently down as you can
see just over 9 percent.
Commerzbank falling around 8 percent UBS under pressure too along with some of the French banks amid all this; we're seeing a flight to safety globally
into government bonds. U.S. benchmark 10-year treasury yields now down at 3.31 percent, as you can see there, that's a 7-month low.
The question is what's driving this? Anna Stewart joins us now. Rather you answer this question then me. Anna, great to have you with us, though I do
notice actually the stock price there of Deutsche Bank is off the lows that we saw earlier on in the session. What do we think's going on?
ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: Well, I have to say it's pretty choppy, because right now it's now down, -11.5 percent. So I think this is just going to be
an incredibly volatile day.
CHATTERLEY: Yes.
STEWART: Listen, it was interesting. You mentioned the sharp rise in the cost of credit default swaps insurance on its debt. There's also of course,
expected I think 81 bonds have been lower across the board for European banks since Credit Suisse and the fallout and everything that happened
there.
Why Deutsche Bank? You know, this was a troubled bank; it was actually called the riskiest bank by the IMF in 2016, which I'm sure you'll
remember. I'm trying to think back to all the stories we did, then, you know, there was the rate fixing scandal with LIBOR.
There was money laundering, investigations, anti-bribery, scandals, green washing, it was unprofitable for a fair few years. But the difference
between this bank and Credit Suisse is it did undergo a massive, restructure, and pretty successfully, it is now profitable. It meets all
the capital liquidity requirements you would expect of a large European bank.
The only thing I can think right now, and it's this is really a guessing game is that of all of the links, we're looking at weak links in Europe,
Credit Suisse was the weakest and it did buckle under the broader sentiment of banking sector. Perhaps this is just still perceived to be one of those
weak links and perhaps this is just buckling a little on a Friday?
CHATTERLEY: Yes, it's some, all it takes when you have low levels of liquidity is for someone to put through a trade like that to buy some
protection simply because they're looking to your point, what they perceive to be some of the weakest banks and that thing moves.
And then again, as we saw with some of the banks in the United States, speculation starts and then you have a situation like today, there's still
a lot of nervousness around. And speaking of sort of reports, what is the report now that suggesting that the Department of Justice is looking at
banks, including Credit Suisse and UBS into possible behavior around Russian oligarchs?
STEWART: This wasn't particularly welcome news Friday, particularly after the few weeks we've had on banking. So it's but yes, there is this report
in Bloomberg that suggests that the DOJ, the Department of Justice, is investigating staff at both UBS and Credit Suisse.
And whether or not they were involved in helping Russian oligarchs evade Western sanctions. Now, that's pretty much all we know at this stage. We
have no comment from those banks, but both those stocks trading down Credit Suisse down 7 percent UBS have down around 5 percent at this stage. So
certainly not welcome news really hard to unpick there.
[09:05:00]
Whether it's that report or whether it is just the whole sector under pressure once again right for a weekend as ever, Julia. I said this last
week thank goodness markets closed for the weekend but last weekend was very busy in terms of banking stories.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, you may have just tempted fate. Anna, I might not forgive you. Thank you so much for that. Happy weekend!
STEWART: Happy weekend!
CHATTERLEY: Now as TikTok's future in the United States hangs in the balance, China now flat out denying that it asks Chinese companies to share
foreign user's data. And it accuses the U.S. of failing to provide any evidence that the app is a threat to national security. Beijing sees
lawmakers wanting to ban it or part of a "Xenophobic witch hunt. Here's a taste of the accusations, TikTok is facing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS (R-WA): TikTok surveilling us all and the Chinese Communist Party is able to use this as a tool to manipulate America
as a whole. Your platform should be banned.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLEY: Lance Ulanoff, U.S. Editor in Chief at the technology publication TechRadar. Lance, great to have you on the show! It didn't feel
like a hearing to me it felt like a verdict and it wasn't a good one.
LANCE ULANOFF, U.S. EDITOR IN CHIEF AT TECHRADAR: Yes, we call it instead of hearing it was speechifying.
CHATTERLEY: Yes.
ULANOFF: I mean, they just lawmakers just kept sort of saying things at the CEO Shou Chew and they really didn't give them an opportunity to explain.
But I did pick out some interesting things like for the fact that he does report directly to ByteDance's CEO, which is important because he is in
China.
So there were like little bits and pieces of actually useful information. But I will say that one of the big takeaways I have here is that, you know,
I think there's wild agreement that there's going to have to be some sort of regulation. I know they all like waved around damning it. I don't think
that's going to happen, but I think regulation of some form could be expected.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I mean, what your point there is an important one, as you said, he reports to someone who sits in China is the CEO of a Chinese
company. And even though he said, look, I've never been asked for data, even if I were asked for it. I wouldn't provide it, the concern, the fear,
can't be ruled out.
And I think that became very clear yesterday. And how quickly to your final point, do you think Congress can act on this because there clearly is
bipartisan agreement that this is a threat, whether it's the data threat, or the China threat?
ULANOFF: I mean, that's what's really interesting, you have bipartisan support, which you never have for anything in the U.S. right now. And you
have the support of the White House, the White House was demanding that they sell, or they may, in fact, move forward with some sort of ban.
So something could happen rather quickly here. But I think that with 150 million Americans using it, that may not be the right approach, and it may
not be the approach that they want to take, because they realize the outcry that might happen because the characterization of the platform was kind of,
off during this whole hearing was just music, dancing, lip syncing.
Now, it's about a place where people actually running businesses, making money, making connections and it's for all different generations, not just
the youngest generation.
CHATTERLEY: I've got two questions now. I'm going to go to the second one first. Consumers are fickle. The internet generation is supremely fickle.
Sorry, but I have to say it; I do wonder whether it will be TikTok's dead long live reels or Snapchat or whatever else. People decide to perform the
same videos or have the same content on, agree or disagree?
ULANOFF: 100 percent, we've seen it before things that are wildly popular remember vine, and then suddenly they're gone. When people aren't using
them anymore I will say that TikTok is in some ways, extraordinary because of its generate multi cross generational appeal, and its algorithm, which
is insanely good.
But still, people have now discovered they need this outlet. And they will march over to another platform, which by the way, you got to imagine that
medicine and they're going, oh, I love this hearing. I can't wait because they don't realize, they on Facebook, they'll be very happy to see TikTok,
go away.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I'm sure they were sitting watching this, eating popcorn and celebrating, quite frankly, because I'm sure it was good for them. Yes,
I know, exactly. Now, my first question, second now, how do you kill this? How do you switch it off that the practicalities of saying to 150 million
people like you've got this app on your phone or on your iPad, whatever it is, but now, it doesn't work anymore? How does that practically work?
ULANOFF: Right, it may won't be immediate. I mean, certainly, you know, they will still stop getting updates. They may wind down the servers
because a lot of the servers and the data is in the U.S. and they may sort of slowly set and then you won't get anything new in your feed.
[09:10:00]
But there is of course another version of TikTok and there are other versions available in other countries and if you wanted to try VPN and
basically shielding where you're accessing the app from to get to a live version of TikTok, you could conceivably do that it won't be easy.
And I think because of the hurdles, that if this actually happened, people would march over to something else. But again, I actually don't think
that's what's going to happen here at least not now. Unless the relationship with China gets so much worse that basically they're like
anything from China, we don't want. Well, good luck with that.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, good luck with that. What about potential sale, Lance? It's sort of in a lot of the coverage that I've seen, it's almost written
off.
ULANOFF: Yes.
CHATTERLEY: Is that a possibility and I guess the punchier question on that is who would buy it anyway?
ULANOFF: Well, it would be extremely expensive. Billions, certainly, it would be, you know, at least in the WhatsApp area, you know, I think
WhatsApp was bought for 2 billion by Facebook back in the day. And I think it's more than that. So the other thing is, I don't think ByteDance wants
to sell it is a point of pride, they've created a global sensation.
And it doesn't seem to be on the table. It's one of the reasons that the CEO showed up with that really so called rich plan. project Texas, where
they're shifting everything, not just you know, the data, which has already been living in the U.S., but they're going to really, you know, make sure
it's all in the cloud and get rid of any legacy data, set up a separate board, set up a separate company.
You'll move people into like they're trying to firewall the whole thing, right? Which by the way, if you notice the lawmakers are like, not
interested, not enough for us.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I was - this we're really about legitimate privacy concerns. And why haven't we got basic data privacy laws in the United
States already project Clover, project Texas?
ULANOFF: That's right. They what have they done up to this point to really address that? And suddenly, TikTok is the shining example of the worst
thing that can happen when of course it isn't. We've had issues with all social media platforms, there's something fundamental about these platforms
and their availability and their broad reach.
That sometimes inspires the worst and people but it also and to be clear, it also can inspire the best in people and the majority of activity on
TikTok is actually pretty cool and fun, entertaining and interesting, and maybe even inspiring.
CHATTERLEY: Lance, you've done a perfect tease now to a conversation I'm going to have later on in the show. So thank you twice, for joining us on
the show. Great to chat to you, the U.S. Editor in Chief at TechRadar there! And later in the show, we'll hear from a small American startup that
says its sales soared.
Thanks to a positive review on TikTok, so that's coming up. Now what to do about TikTok is a question that governments in numerous countries clearly
are grappling with. Here's what Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told our Paula Newton she spoke with him just as President Biden visited his
neighbor to the north.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): In terms of what's going on with Chinese influence right now, TikTok has been a topic of discussion
your government banned it on government devices, but I want to ask you as a father, what are your concerns, given that for young people, TikTok is
incredibly popular?
JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: Well, I have two teenagers; they're no longer on TikTok. They are on all sorts of different social
media platforms. And as a parent, all I can do is try and make sure that they're smart, and that they're trying to keep themselves safe. They're
making the right kinds of choices around that.
As a government, we need to make sure that we are giving citizens the tools to keep themselves safe and do what we can to ensure that we're not
vulnerable to cyber-attacks or foreign influence attacks or misinformation and disinformation that we're seeing increasingly as a threat to our
democracy.
NEWTON (on camera): The CEO in appearing denies that there's any kind of Chinese involvement in terms of what you think, though, as you know, the
Prime Minister and intelligence that you see. Do you think that China can have its long arm of surveillance within our countries on an app like
TikTok?
TRUDEAU: I think there was a significant enough concern that we decided that it would be the most responsible thing to do to ensure that government
issued phones does not have TikTok. What that means for individuals, what that means for companies and corporate phones, what that means for other
people? I think there's a lot of reflections and a lot of conversations going on about that.
NEWTON (on camera): Do you believe the Communist Party can use something like TikTok?
TRUDEAU: I think we've consistently seen that China uses whatever the Chinese government uses, whatever tools it can to get information, get data
that is going to be advantageous to their aims around the world and we've also seen that Chinese owned or Chinese directed companies are very much
answerable to the Communist Party of China.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHATTERLEY: OK, let's move on U.S. Military Officials say retaliatory strikes in Eastern Syria are a "proportionate response" to a drone attack
that killed a U.S. contractor.
[09:15:00]
The Pentagon says 6 other Americans were injured in Thursday's attack by a drone of Iranian origin. This video posted on social media is such a show
the aftermath of the U.S. air strikes. There are unconfirmed reports of deaths of pro-Iranian fighters. Nic Robertson joins us now on this story.
Nic, good to have you with us! And White House Official John Kirby just spoke to our colleagues on CNN this morning and he criticized Iran's
destabilizing behavior. And he said the U.S. will continue to defend itself in this way. You can tell us what happened on either side here. But do you
think this response draws a line to what's been recent violence, not just one event?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It's unlikely to draw a line under it. And it's not clear if it's actually going to trigger further
retaliation from the Iranian side, you know, the U.S. said that its response was proportionate and intended not to draw an - not to make an
escalation out of the situation, but the facts on the ground aren't clear yet.
And we don't know what the group involved they are going to make of it. And what they're going to decide to do about it, irrespective of how much
control and how much dependency they have on the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is what the United States was saying that
they do.
Those explosions we could see there look like they could be sort of secondary detonations that ammunition dump. And typically those have been
the targets of previous retaliatory strikes. But I think one of the comments that John Kirby made earlier, and this gets to what you were
saying just an hour ago, that the strikes came very quickly.
He said we're monitoring the situation very closely. And it does seem as if the United States has a packet of target lists, a packet of targets that
it's ready to target at a moment's notice. We don't quite know the lead time between the initial strike and U.S. response.
But it does seem that there was an absolute readiness. The President Biden signing off on it, of course, to respond in kind swiftly and I think that
just tells us how high the tensions are there already.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, an immediate - response. Nic, great to have you with us, thank you. Nic Robertson there! OK, straight ahead here on "First Move",
the warning signs human medics can miss. How Artificial Intelligence gives women a better chance against cancer. And allow me to whet your appetites
how a tasty review on TikTok transformed a chocolate tears business. That's all to come.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:20:00]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to "First Move", and the ongoing fight against breast cancer. The American Cancer Society notes that screening mammograms
miss around 1 in 8 breast cancers. Well, now one London based startup is looking to change that using Artificial Intelligence.
Founded in 2016 Kheiron Medical Technologies is helping radiologists detect breast cancer earlier with its AI screening product called MIA. MIA, which
stands for Mammography Intelligent Assistant serves as the second pair of eyes in the room allowing doctors to decide whether to call a patient back
for further evaluation, post screening.
Now the company has teamed up with Microsoft's Azure Cloud to help radiologists on a global scale. And joining us now is Dr. Peter
Kecskemethy; he is the Co-Founder and CEO of Kheiron Medical Technologies. Great to have you on the show! Peter, if I may call you that, just starts
by explaining how the technology works.
DR. PETER KECSKEMETHY, CO-FOUNDER & CEO OF KHEIRON MEDICAL TECHNOLOGIES: Yes--
CHATTERLEY: What makes AI so powerful? Welcome.
KECSKEMETHY: Thanks a lot for covering this topic. It is, I believe, quite important, as you said earlier, some say 1 in 8 women or 1 in 8 cancers
potentially get mentioned in breast cancer screening, some say potentially 1 in 5. And I would say I think about 0.25 million of women in the U.S.
this year might have an invasive diagnosis and potentially 50,000 are expected to die of breast cancers.
This is an extremely important topic. AI can help here, that's the great news. Many people don't know that actually, cancer detection is really
hard. And in Europe, for instance, 2 doctors look at every single case in the U.S. that currently is one single doctor for every single case.
The AI, how it can help is really by seeing completely different information on inaccessible to the human eye and human visual cortex and
generally how humans process information. It can be consistent it can be brought to rural areas where it would be hard to bring specialists. So
there's quite a bit of equity and quite a bit of accuracy improvement that AI can bring to the U.S. and across the globe.
CHATTERLEY: How do you train it and teach it to learn what to look for? How many mammograms does it have to read before to your point, and you can give
me the stats on this how it's sort of consistently, perhaps picking up things that the human eye whether it's one set of eyes, or two sets of
eyes, in certain cases perhaps don't find.
And I'm sure it's highly pressured for the doctors involved or the radiologists that are looking at these mammograms to try and decide what to
do.
KECSKEMETHY: Yes, so a human doctor usually looks at a couple 100 of cases a day, one after the other usually sitting in a dark room. I've seen it
firsthand because my mom is a Radiologist and I spent most of my childhood in Radiology Departments looking at the grueling work that doctors had to
go through.
A doctor sees a couple of 1000 cases in a year and they have to in order to keep their certification. Our AI can look at and is getting trained on a
couple of million cases. So it sees much more variety and it sees much more information than a doctor can see in a lifetime.
And actually, what AI, modern AI is really good at is finding at what is the relevant information in the data, in the images, in the follow up
information from historical patient records. And that is how the AI trains. It looks at what's in the images, what happens with the patient, it
correlates those.
Usually and then not necessarily human understandable way, but that's actually the power, if can think very differently from humans. And what we
can do with this is combine human understanding of the images with what the AI can get out of the images, you put the two together and that's how you
can use all the information from the mammogram or potentially from other images for the best benefit of patients.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, and actually, I'm sure sort of pick out fractional changes again that perhaps the human eye wouldn't over a period of time too. How
difficult is it to generalize this technology, whether we're talking about variances in age, ethnicity, body shape, for example?
[09:25:00]
KECSKEMETHY: Yes, actually the term generalizability is the fundamental work in the AI community for the AI actually working. AI is a completely
different technology from everything we have seen before. If you have a piece of hardware, you know how it works, if you have a piece of software,
that we know that for certain inputs, it has certain outputs.
For AI, it has to generalize from what it has seen during training to completely unseen new patients, completely unseen new cases. That's the
fundamental way that we are assessing AI, does it work? The question is does it generalize, so it has to work across different patients, different
demographics, different ethnicities, different hardware, and that is the fundamentally hard thing, both to train it to work and to assess it to
work.
And how we know from our side is we tested it on hundreds of thousands of cases. And in European also tested in real life use where we have seen that
the doctors using the AI were able to detect 13 percent more cancers than without it. And that practically tells us that we can believe it will most
likely half the number of cancers miss the screening.
CHATTERLEY: Wow, that's sort of based on what you've already seen, or just what you're predicting?
KECSKEMETHY: This is what we have seen in some live use data. And actually, some of our early tests showed no false positives in that process.
CHATTERLEY: Fascinating.
KECSKEMETHY: While helping the tech market.
CHATTERLEY: I know there was a debate about why you chose to sort of test and challenge this technology in Hungary, but now it's operating, I believe
all over the country. Where else is it an operation and connected to that to the point that you made earlier? What does your mother think of it?
That's the acid test?
KECSKEMETHY: Yes, absolutely. So actually my mom has been working with the company from the very beginning. When I spent my childhood in Radiology
Departments, I've seen that it's not just the patients who are suffering in healthcare, but a lot of times the doctors as well.
And primarily that is because they don't have the best technology available for them to do the best job. And they're more supported by finding the
right restaurant that they want to on their phone and actually helping the patients. So actually, I've done a number of startups now helping doctors
and this one is helping radiologists directly.
And we're working closely eliminating exactly the type of grueling work and the menial labor that doctors have to do. So that they can actually focus
on the patient, they can focus their whole mind and their whole thinking on the hard problems at hand rather than again, the menial tasks.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, your small smile when I mentioned your mother tells me that, she's proud of you too and excited. What you just said that though
sent me off in a completely different direction. One of my very close girlfriends is a Gastroenterologist and she works incredibly hard.
And she's always talking about this debate, because she goes through what she finds with these patients with them on an emotional level I think, but
also works incredible hours, and he's very meticulous about what she's looking at and to ensure that she doesn't miss things. Do you think this
could be applied to other cancers in other parts of the body too?
KECSKEMETHY: Absolutely, and I would say that I have a strong belief that we can only beat cancer as a disease, if we get diagnostics, right. And I
very firmly believe that AI is the only way to get there because of both the sheer amount of data that is required in order to process a single
person's case and the variety of genetics, radiology, and pathology and so on.
I believe AI is the unlock to actually conquer such a really complex and dynamic disease as cancer both at a screening stage as well as later down
the line, when the doctors have to determine whether a treatment is working for a patient or not.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, fascinating conversation. We'll keep up with you and track your progress Dr. Peter Kecskemethy, great to have you on the show, sir,
thank you and hi to your mom, Co-Founder and CEO of Kheiron Medical Technologies, thank you. Alright, still to come on "First Move", King
Charles puts off a state visit to France as violent protests rocked the nation. We're live in Paris after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:30:00]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to "First Move"! Another day where banking uncertainties are weighing on global stock market sentiment U.S. stocks, as
you can see opening lower by around half a percent so far. European shares also weaker too.
Stocks of Deutsche Bank leading the European banking sector declines off session lows, but still down some 8 percent as Anna was saying earlier
volatile though. The cost of buying insurance against a Deutsche Bank default jumping to four year highs it just escalates or at least highlights
the level of uncertainty.
And playing into the Deutsche Bank woes lays the broader fears of how the current financial uncertainties are affecting what we call credit markets
and banks' ability and willingness to lend? Take a look at this chart from Torsten Slok of Apollo Global Management.
This highlights the uncertainty in the concerns. It shows that U.S. capital markets have essentially been frozen since the collapse of Silicon Valley
Bank with issuance in what's known as both high yield and investment grade or high quality debt drying up.
In English it just means raising money now is incredibly hard. And we're talking corporate and despite the liquidity provision by the Central Banks,
probably for the banks too particularly those smaller ones.
OK, where does an investor go through to ride out the stormy seas in addition to global treasuries gold has been a winning trade? The precious
metal currently breaking through that $2,000 an ounce level Apple a winner too currently near six month highs up 22 percent year-to-date. You have to
look at the two year performance so I think to get perspective on that too.
Alright, state visit to France next week by King Charles have been postponed as pension protests continue. Buckingham Palace says the King and
Queen Consort will make the plan to visit as soon as new dates can be found.
French trade unions are planning to stage more protests across the nation on Tuesday next week against the government's controversial pension
reforms. Sam Kiley joins us now from Paris. Sam another night of violence yesterday. I don't think that either the President or the Royals actually
want the spotlight on them there at this moment?
[09:35:00]
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No. And Emmanuel Macron the French President, Julia has just pretty much said just that in Brussels
at a press conference following his meetings there, he said that it effectively was common sense to pose ask the Palace to postpone the visit
of King Charles and Queen Camilla to France.
The first overseas visit, since the death of the King, since his accession to the throne, would have been to France. But that's no longer going to be
the case because there would have been this very large, we're in anticipation of a very large series of demonstrations, right bang in the
middle of their trip. They were due to come on Sunday leave on Wednesday for Germany.
The demonstrations are scheduled for Tuesday, yesterday, more than a million people took to the streets in France amid demonstrations that
turned violent in Bordeaux, where King Charles was due to visit with Camilla. In fact they burned the doors and the front of the facade of the
City Hall, which was where they were due to being having lunch.
So it would have been very much in their face. Very embarrassing, potentially for the Macron Administration, possibly even for the French
people to have this sort of performance going on when there's 10,000 tonnes of rubbish accumulated on the streets of the French Capital as a result of
the strikes in protest against these pension reforms Julia.
So that has been put off into the summer. But we understand from Buckingham Palace that so far at any rate, they will be continuing with their trip to
Germany, which will be the first overseas trip by the new King as I say, Julia?
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I was going to say I think perhaps those images give me my answer, Sam. But is there any sign of perhaps softening on the parts of the
unions the belief that look, they can't continue the scale of protests that we're talking about.
Particularly if it's another sizable one on Tuesday, next week, or despite what we heard from the President earlier this week, saying, look, this is
going to be done by the end of the year, and enacted in terms of these pension reforms, any sign of softening?
KILEY: Well, I think you put your finger on a very subtle problem that I was speaking to an official in the biggest union here, just the other day.
And he said the reason they're not calling for general strikes rather than widespread strikes, and only partial strikes are being enacted.
So that 30 plus percent of the people working for total, that French oil company, for example, were out on strike, that means that the rest were
not. And the reason for that austerity, the credit crunch on people's pockets, is of course, being felt most keenly, among the least well paid.
And it's the least well paid, who they argue, will be suffering the most as a result of these pension reforms. They don't get paid to go on strike. And
so it's costly. It's also potentially embarrassing for the Union if they were to call a general strike, and they're not to be fulsome response to
it.
So they're relying on the street protests, these set peace demonstrations. There is anger on the streets. There are these spontaneous demonstrations
but they're not huge four or five 6000 people maximum here in Paris over the last week in the spontaneous demonstration.
So the unions are hoping to can maintain this pressure, but ultimately, unless the Constitutional Council throws the legislation out as
unconstitutional, and note, there are no signs that they will, this legislation is a done deal, and Macron simply has to wait out this
disruption.
But his problem is that this disruption at the moment is got the broad support of the majority of French. A lot of opinion polls showing 60 to 70
percent support for these demonstrations. How long that support will last will depend on really how deep down they feel these pension reforms are?
But ultimately Macron is insisting they are economically necessary. The pension deficit by 2027 will be 12.5 billion Euros. And he's saying that is
unacceptable. He's unwilling. He's not - he is reluctant to impose these new changes on the French pension system. But he says they've got to go
through and they in all probability they simply will, Julia.
CHATTERLEY: Yes. A Presidential protesting pension pickle, the end Sam Kylie, thank you so much for joining us there from Paris! We're back after
this.
[09:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to "First Move"! Now for all the criticism that we've seen of social media this week one small American chocolatier says
it's enjoying the sweet smell of success. Thanks to the power of TikTok.
Cocoa Asante makes premium chocolates using ethically sourced ingredients from Ghana. Its run by Ella Livingston in Tennessee and her decision to ask
a TikTok food critic Keith Lee, for a review set in motion a revenue roller coaster. And here's why?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEITH LEE, TIKTOK'S FAVORITE FOOD REVIEWER: I love when sweets are balanced is salty is nutty, that chocolate got the perfect snap on it. 9.5 out of 10
but again, that's crazy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLEY: And I should point out that Keith there has over 11 million followers. Now within an hour Ella said her whole website had sold out. And
she had to switch to pre orders to deal with the demand. And I'm pleased to say Ella joins us now.
Ella fantastic to have you with us! Just explain to me a little bit about the business already because it's sort of cocoa bean to bite, which I love
already. But then the TikTok effect sort of took over.
ELLA LIVINGSTON, CEO, COCOA ASANTE: Absolutely. So Cocoa Asante, we pride ourselves on making handcrafted chocolate that are literally almost too
pretty to eat. And of course, you know the cacao beans are sourced from Ghana.
What we aspire to do is to become bean to bar meaning in the future, which actually we're trying to do this year, we plan to process the cacao beans
ourselves and we want to source it from my family's farm that from in Ghana.
CHATTERLEY: Wow! She actually sourced them from family farms as in your family?
LIVINGSTON: That's the goal. That's the goal. So we're not there yet.
CHATTERLEY: How soon do you think you can achieve that?
LIVINGSTON: So it all depends on financing. So we're talking to a couple companies right now as we speak, to see if we can get things in motion to
get the equipment and get set up and get started.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I mean, all of this, I think combines to that sort of moment, I think and you would agree where you were just going along with
the business trying to promote yourself trying to sell your chocolate.
Then you have that sort of wow moment of the 9.5 out of 10 reviews by Keith Lee on Twitter and everything exploded. I went to the website and I think
we have to wait five to six weeks now. That's how much demand you're seeing. And it's been steady since?
LIVINGSTON: It has been and it's continuing to blow my mind the power of honestly one man social media platform and how he uses it to promote small
businesses like mine who you know we have great products we have great customer service. It's just you know, we lacked the marketing you know the
funds for marketing.
[09:45:00]
CHATTERLEY: I mean this was free advertising for you to your point about marketing?
LIVINGSTON: It was and we're so grateful. We have seen our social media platforms double and followers, the revenue that we've generated honestly
from Saturday when he first or Friday night in West Coast time when he first posted a video today we pretty much generated almost as much as we
did last year, for the entire year, in these last six days. So it's been absolutely amazing.
CHATTERLEY: Do you credit TikTok then with amplifying your voice in a way and giving you access to customers that simply wouldn't have seen you
otherwise?
LIVINGSTON: One hundred percent. I mean, there's no doubt about it. Social media has been one of the primary ways that we've grown Cocoa Asante and
TikTok was one of the platforms that allowed us to really accelerate that growth.
CHATTERLEY: Did you watch any of the hearings yesterday where lawmakers were sounding pretty punchy, in their concern about the dangers of TikTok
that China could perhaps take some of your data if they wanted to. Ella is these big concerns to you? Or is the bigger concern without TikTok things
like this that helps you grow your business wouldn't happen?
LIVINGSTON: Honestly, speaking, I think that the concern for me is more without TikTok, what would happen? There are over 5 million many business
users who use TikTok to grow their platform.
And even more importantly, you know, I was watching different clips through TikTok, of course. And that was watching different clips of what was
happening at the hearing. I just found it so interesting that you know, as a parent, and as an educator, more importantly than my business growing
through, TikTok.
I found it interesting that Congress wanted to ban TikTok because of the effect that it would have on our children, but they still refuse to do
anything about you know, school shootings.
CHATTERLEY: Ella you raise so many important points and something that my audience should know, too. I mean, when you were doing this, the chocolate
business, in addition to being a teacher, as you said, as an educator here in the United States, and this has allowed you to focus on chocolate, which
I understand is a passion too as well as being a teacher.
So you think it's a crazy idea to ban TikTok? What happens if they do though? What were you thinking as I guess, what's your message to lawmakers
and the government, you raise a very important point about tackling this and no other sensitive issues in this country like gun control? But what's
your message to them before they do anything to ban TikTok?
LIVINGSTON: I would definitely say just to think long and hard about the implications of banning a platform like TikTok, not just for small business
owners, but you know, influencers who use that as a primary way of generating revenue, all the information, you know, I hear it over and over
and over again.
And I personally have learned more on the platform of TikTok than when I think of my formal education, not college, but if I think of, you know,
like high school. And so yes, it's a platform where people can pose and it is a little bit unregulated.
But I think instead of banning, we should look more at regulation. And also just, you know, look at, you know, what's happening here with our social
media here, in the U.S., and with, you know, other technologies, where they have access to our data, they have access to all of our information.
And instead of just focusing on TikTok, TikTok let's look at it, you know, as a whole, what can we do to protect, you know, the privacy of consumers,
but I definitely think that it would do more harm than good.
But as social media, you know, creators, we always know that a platform can be gone, just like that. And so we are always prepared to pivot. And if
it's not TikTok, it's going to be another platform.
CHATTERLEY: So you're not that loyal to TikTok to your point. If TikTok eventually went away, you'd be like, next, we'll move on.
LIVINGSTON: I mean we have to, right? Because--
CHATTERLEY: Yes.
LIVINGSTON: --we have to continue to grow the business. And right now TikTok is the platform that's been amazing. And I love, love, love TikTok
me and my husband both. But if, you know if it does get banned, you know, we're right. We have to do it. We have to do and we're ready.
CHATTERLEY: OK, I have one more question. You raise such an important point about the fact that and this is something that the TikTok CEO said
yesterday, any social media company can access your information. So if this were really about privacy, do something about the other tech giants too.
And what it came down to was the fear of China and national security and accessing data of American citizens. Ella that does that worries you? Or is
your view that actually you put information out there and anyone can have it? Do you worry about China? How much do you care about China accessing
American data?
[09:50:00]
LIVINGSTON: I'm going to be hundred percent honest with you, I'm speaking from the perspective as a black American. I don't worry as much of what
China can do as I worry as what the U.S. can do.
And if you look at our history and the way minorities and marginalized groups have been treated, you can see that we have so much more to fear
right here in the U.S. than we do in what China could do.
CHATTERLEY: Ella a smart response. Thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate your time. Ella Livingston there, the CEO of Cocoa Asante, great
to chat to you thank you! We're back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back! Thursday's fiery TikTok hearing several lawmakers questioned the CEO about its relationship with China's version of the app.
It has different moderation policies and limits users. Lawmakers asked TikTok CEO why it seemed to do a better job of removing harmful content
too, as Selina Wang reports.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Pressure is building again in Washington to ban TikTok all because it's owned by a Chinese company
ByteDance. In China TikTok is banned in fact, it never existed.
Instead, there's a separate version of ByteDance's app in China called Douyin boosting more than 600 million daily active users Douyin was already
a viral sensation in China before TikTok launched overseas.
WANG (on camera): So I've got TikTok pulled up on my U.S. phone and Douyin on this China phone. They've got very similar homepages and interfaces. The
only reason why I can access TikTok here in Beijing is because this phone has got an overseas SIM card in it and a VPN to get around China's internet
firewall.
WANG (voice over): But Douyin has some more sophisticated features, especially in live streaming and E-commerce. And Douyin users under 14 can
only use the app for 40 minutes a day and see kid's safe content.
WANG (on camera): Plus Douyin automatically puts on this heavy beauty filter when I open up this camera function. Media is heavily censored in
China. So if I type in a topic sensitive to the Chinese government on Douyin, say like Tiananmen 1989, nothing pops up and I get a text that says
no search results available. Versus on TikTok you'll see that a bunch of videos pop up about the massacre.
WANG (voice over): One of Washington's concerns is that because of its Chinese ownership, Beijing could use its propaganda and censorship methods
on TikTok too. The other fears are that TikTok could be forced to hand over data to the Chinese government. But security experts say the national
security risks are hypothetical at best. Beijing says the U.S. government has been abusing state power to suppress other countries companies.
But the irony is that China has outright blocked countless foreign websites and apps including Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp,
Netflix and more. On Douyin Chinese state media has been sharing TikTok videos from angry Americans.
[09:55:00]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Explain it to me Joe why the sudden move to ban TikTok? Still what the Chinese want our data they can just buy the data on the free
market that we love so much.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Joe Biden I am 80 years old. I'm not a teenager, there are quite a few million people on TikTok, who are not going to vote for you
if you ban this app.
WANG (voice over): Meanwhile, nationalistic influencers on Douyin are accusing the U.S. government of using national security as an excuse to
crack down on TikTok because of America's fears of China. But it remains to be seen if TikTok can convince Washington that it poses no threat. Selina
Wang, CNN, Beijing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHATTERLEY: And finally on "First Move" one rebellious zebra in South Korea was ready for the weekend. Sarah the Zebra went rogue in Seoul on Thursday,
giving zookeepers a royal run around. The three year old male trotted down busy roads and back alleys for hours even trying to elude his keepers via
camouflage on a Zebra crossing that's genius.
Firefighters herded the animal into an alley where he was subdued kindly with a muscle relaxant. You'll be pleased to know he calmed down and was
safely returned to the zoo. I don't know throw him out in the wild. That's it's for the show. "Connect the World" is up next, have a great weekend.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
