{"id":145230,"date":"2023-01-13T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mediaintel.asia\/?p=912120"},"modified":"2023-01-13T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-13T00:00:00","slug":"why-more-states-are-banning-tiktok-on-government-devices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/2023\/01\/13\/why-more-states-are-banning-tiktok-on-government-devices\/","title":{"rendered":"Why more states are banning TikTok on government devices"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MediaIntel.Asia\"<\/a><\/div>\n

MADISON, Wis. (AP) \u2014 Wisconsin and North Carolina have joined at least 22 other states in banning the popular social media app TikTok on state-owned devices, including Mississippi, Indiana, Louisiana and South Dakota.
\nCongress also recently banned TikTok from most U.S. government-issued devices over bipartisan concerns about security.
\nTikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company that moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020. It has been targeted by critics who say the Chinese government could access user data, such as browsing history and location. U.S. armed forces also have prohibited the app on military devices.
\nTikTok is consumed by two-thirds of American teens and has become the second-most popular domain in the world. But there\u2019s long been a bipartisan concern in Washington that Beijing would use legal and regulatory power to seize American user data or try to push pro-China narratives or misinformation.
\nHere\u2019s a look at the action in Wisconsin and North Carolina and the broader debate over TikTok:
\nWHY DID WISCONSIN AND NORTH CAROLINA BAN TIKTOK?
\nDemocratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers cited concerns about privacy, safety and security, after consulting with the FBI and emergency management officials about the app. Evers\u2019 order applies to most state agencies, with some exceptions like criminal investigators who may be using the app to track certain people.
\nThe University of Wisconsin System, which employs 40,000 faculty and staff, is also exempt. But a UW System spokesperson said despite the exemption, the university was conducting a review and moving toward placing restrictions on the app being used on devices in order to protect against serious cybersecurity risks.
\nBoth Evers and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper also prohibited the use of WeChat, a Chinese instant messaging app, on state devices.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s important for us to protect state information technology from foreign countries that have actively participated in cyberattacks against the United States,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cProtecting North Carolina from cyber threats is vital to ensuring the safety, security, privacy, and success of our state and its people.\u201d
\nWHAT ARE THE CONCERNS ABOUT TIKTOK?
\nBoth the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that TikTok user data could be shared by owner ByteDance Ltd. with China\u2019s authoritarian government. U.S. officials also worry that the Chinese government might use TikTok to push pro-China narratives or misinformation.
\nFears were stoked by news reports last year that a China-based team improperly accessed data of U.S. TikTok users, including two journalists, as part of a covert surveillance program to ferret out the source of leaks to the press.
\nThere are also concerns that the company is sending masses of user data to China, in breach of stringent European privacy rules.
\nAdditionally, there\u2019s been concern about TikTok\u2019s content and whether it harms teenagers\u2019 mental health.
\nWHO HAS PUSHED FOR RESTRICTIONS?
\nIn 2020, then-President Donald Trump and his administration sought to ban dealings with TikTok\u2019s owner, force it to sell off its U.S. assets and remove it from app stores. Courts blocked Trump\u2019s efforts to ban TikTok, and President Joe Biden rescinded Trump\u2019s orders after taking office but ordered an in-depth study of the issue. A planned sale of TikTok\u2019s U.S. assets was shelved.
\nIn Congress, concern about the app has been bipartisan. Congress last month banned TikTok from most U.S. government-issued devices over bipartisan concerns about security.
\nThe Senate in December approved a version of the TikTok ban authored by conservative Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a vocal critic of big tech companies.
\nBut Democratic U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, of Illinois, has co-sponsored legislation to prohibit TikTok from operating in the U.S. altogether, and the measure approved by Congress in December had the support of Democratic U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
\nWHAT DOES TIKTOK SAY?
\n\u201cWe\u2019re disappointed that so many states are jumping on the political bandwagon to enact policies that will do nothing to advance cybersecurity in their states and are based on unfounded falsehoods about TikTok,\u201d Jamal Brown, a spokesperson for TikTok, said in an emailed statement.
\nTikTok is developing security and data privacy plans as part of an ongoing national security review by President Joe Biden\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MADISON, Wis. (AP) \u2014 Wisconsin and North Carolina have joined at least 22 other states in banning the popular social media app TikTok on state-owned devices, including Mississippi, Indiana, Louisiana and South Dakota.
\nCongress also recently banned Tik…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,144,325,529,288,194,222,465,1542,55,484,334],"tags":[10320,3686,10309,3472,1696,3544,10352,10315,2240,2172,1977,1859,10310,10336,8064],"class_list":["post-145230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beijing","category-china","category-education","category-fbi","category-medicine","category-news-chinese-law","category-online-video","category-social-media","category-technology","category-tencent","category-united-states","category-university","tag-biden","tag-boycott","tag-bytedance","tag-chinese","tag-congress","tag-donald-trump","tag-european","tag-media-intelligence","tag-military","tag-national-security","tag-senate","tag-singapore","tag-tiktok","tag-washington","tag-wechat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145230"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145232,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145230\/revisions\/145232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}