Texas Governor Abbott orders all state agencies to ban use of TikTok on government-issued devices because it is data harvesting for the Chinese Communist Party
Some state leaders across the country are banning the use of the Chinese-owned short-form video platform on government devices
TikTok's parent company ByteDance employs members of the Chinese Communist Party who could compel the app to share US consumer data
The US intelligence community has long cited the Chinese-owned app as a potential national security risk
The Trump administration threatened to ban the app, before the effort was reversed by the Biden administration
By SOPHIE MANN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 21:56 EST, 7 December 2022 | UPDATED: 22:00 EST, 7 December 2022
A growing number of states, including Texas, are banning the use of the short-form video app TikTok on government devices because of the likelihood that data from the app is harvested by the Chinese Communist Party.
On Wednesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott became the latest state leader to ban the use of the popular app, following Maryland, South Dakota, South Carolina and Nebraska.
Abbott, a Republican, said, 'TikTok harvests vast amounts of data from its users' devices—including when, where, and how they conduct Internet activity—and offers this trove of potentially sensitive information to the Chinese government.'
'While TikTok has claimed that it stores US data within the United States, the company admitted in a letter to Congress that China-based employees can have access to US data. It has also been reported that ByteDance planned to use TikTok location information to surveil individual American citizens,' Abbott continued.
He directed Texas state agencies to immediately ban officers and employees from using or downloading TikTok on any government-issued device, which included cell phones, laptops, tablets, and all other devices capable of internet connectivity.
The app, which has long been a trouble spot for the US intelligence community, has 85 million American users and is owned by a Chinese company that employs members of the Chinese Communist Party and has a subsidiary that is partially owned by the CCP.
Members of the US intelligence community have long feared that the Chinese regime could compel TikTok to share American user data with the CCP.
Abbott's declaration follows a similar one from South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, who asked the state's Department of Administration to block access to the app on government devices.
'Protecting our State’s critical cyber infrastructure from foreign and domestic threats is key to ensuring the health, safety, and well-being of our citizens and businesses,' he wrote in a letter.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem said in a press release, that her state 'will have no part in the intelligence gathering operations of nations who hate us.'
Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland banned the app along with certain Russia-based platforms.
He said in a statement, 'There may be no greater threat to our personal safety and our national security than the cyber vulnerabilities that support our daily lives.'
Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts blocked the app on all state devices back in August 2020.
On Wednesday, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita also filed the first state lawsuits against TikTok for lying to users about China's access to their information and for exposing children to inappropriately mature content.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said earlier this year that TikTok's data collection 'can be used for traditional espionage operations.'
The Trump administration threatened to ban the app unless it was sold to an American company, citing potential national security and privacy threats. President Biden was quick to reverse those efforts but ordered a lengthy government review of apps owned by foreign governments and whether they pose risks to US Security.
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