Newsletter
Georgia has banned the use of TikTok, WeChat, and Telegram on government-owned devices. Governor Brian Kemp announced the ban on Thursday. Kemp said these apps pose national security risks as their Chinese and Russian owners could access American users’ personal information. They could hand over the data to their respective governments for spying purposes.
This ban will apply to all government agencies as well as state colleges and universities in Georgia. Some agencies have already swung into action, deleting their TikTok accounts. The Department of Transportation, which was one of the most active state government agencies on TikTok, posted a farewell video within an hour of Kemp’s announcement, the Associated Press (AP) reports. It had nearly 3,000 followers and had posted more than 80 videos since October last year.
The new report adds that at least 20 public Georgia colleges and universities have TikTok accounts. Some even run multiple accounts, including Valdosta State University, which has no less than eight. These educational institutions use the platform for various purposes, including courting “potential new students and communicating with current students and athletic fans”. But the latest directive from the governor means that must stop using TikTok, as well as WeChat and Telegram, on government-owned mobiles and computers.
There will be some exceptions, though. Andrew Isenhour, a spokesperson for the Georgia governor, told the AP that law enforcement agencies and prosecutors can access these banned apps with special permission. Georgia Technology Authority has issued a guideline detailing the exceptions and other regulations regarding this ban.
“The state of Georgia has a responsibility to prevent any attempt to access and infiltrate its secure data and sensitive information by foreign adversaries such as the CCP [Chinese Communist Party],” Kemp wrote in a memo. “As such, it is our duty to take action to preserve the safety and security of our state against the CCP, entities it controls, and other foreign cyberthreats.”
Georgia joins a host of US states to ban TikTok
Georgia is at least the 11th US state to ban TikTok from government-owned devices. Local governments in Alabama, Iowa, Maryland, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Utah have all announced similar bans on the popular short-form video app. The US armed forces have also prohibited TikTok on military devices. FBI Director Chris Wray earlier this month said that the app could be used to spy on Americans. Indiana, meanwhile, sued the Chinese platform last week, for violating security and child safety laws.
The US Senate passed a bill to ban TikTok in the country in 2020, but it never passed the House of Representatives. The Senate voted again this week to bar federal employees from using the app. The House must pass the bill within the current congressional session before it goes to President Joe Biden for approval. Members of the House and Senate have also filed matching bills in an attempt to permanently ban TikTok and other apps influenced by China, Russia, North Korea, and a few more countries in the US. They have cited similar national security concerns.
TikTok, meanwhile, has always pleaded innocence. Its parent company ByteDance moved its headquarters from China to Singapore in 2020 to alleviate security concerns. The company also now stores data of American users in Oracle’s servers within the US. It claims that the Chinese government has no access to its data and that these bans are “fueled by misinformation”. We will now have to wait and see what comes out of the new Senate bill.