US TikTok bans gain ground
Los Angeles – Soon after the University of Texas students returned to classes in January, they received a note from the IT department informing them of a new rule: they could no longer access TikTok on university Wi-Fi.
Students had mixed feelings. “There are legitimate security concerns with the app,” said Adam Nguyen, 19, a computer science major.
“But people should be able to make their own decisions. This sets a dangerous precedent with the university deciding what sorts of things you can do on the network,” he told Context.
The move comes as part of a swirl of efforts to limit the use of TikTok – which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance – in the United States, over fears that US user data could be passed on to China’s government.
The House foreign affairs committee plans to hold a vote this month on a Bill aimed at blocking the use of TikTok in the US.
“There are real concerns about data gathering by Chinese companies,” said Aynne Kokas, a professor of the University of Virginia, and author of the book, Trafficking Data: How China Is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty. “But the idea that this problem goes away if you ban TikTok, that’s just not true.”
For three years, TikTok – which has more than 100 million US users – has been seeking to assure Washington the personal data of citizens cannot be accessed and its content cannot be manipulated by China, or anyone under Beijing’s influence.
TikTok did not respond to a request for comment, but has said in the past bans are based on “unfounded falsehoods about TikTok”.
TikTok has been the most downloaded app in the US since 2021, according to data from Sensor Tower, a data analytics company.
In December last year, President Joe Biden signed a law banning TikTok from government devices and more than half of US states have passed similar restrictions, with college campuses and even some elementary schools following suit.
Sarah Kreps, director at the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University, said the ban should be seen within the context of a decades-long effort by the US to limit the spread of Chinese technology.