The state of Texas forbade its citizens from using TikTok. Governor Greg Abbott recently announced the directive.
He issued an order on Tuesday, December 7, 2022, prohibiting workers of the Texas government from accessing TikTok. If you didn’t know, TikTok is one of the social networking apps with the quickest growth rates.
The issue is that the software was developed in China, and 656 million people downloaded it in the previous year. The third quarter of 2022 saw 571 million downloads of TikTok. Over 1 billion people have downloaded TikTok from the Google Play store, as reported by Newsbreak.
TikTok is the top website for mobile short-form video, according to its website. Its goal is to spread happiness and encourage creativity. Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo are just a few of the cities where TikTok has offices worldwide.
For Safety and Cybersecurity
Governor Abbott sent letters on Texans’ safety and cybersecurity to Speaker Dad Phelan, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, and state agency heads.
According to Abbott, Tiktok collects enormous amounts of information from its customers’ devices, including when, when, and how they use the Internet, and provides this goldmine of potentially sensitive data to the Chinese government.
While TikTok has maintained that it maintains American data domestically, the company acknowledged in a letter to Congress that Chinese employees might have access to American data.
Additionally, Abbott stated that it had been claimed that ByteDance intended to monitor specific American residents by using their TikTok location data, reports said.
Chinese Communist Party members work for the Chinese government-owned TikTok.
By January 15, 2023, Governor Abbott ordered state officials to prohibit employees from downloading and using TikTok on any work-related device, including smartphones, laptops, and desktop PCs.
Abbott is addressing more than just the border situation. He’s attempting to keep your information and you safe.
Similar orders limiting TikTok have also been issued by other states, including Maryland, South Dakota, South Carolina, and Nebraska.
