US TikTok bans gain ground amid growing concern of user data privacy
- The ban for university students in Texas comes amid efforts to limit the use of TikTok on fears that US user data could be accessed by 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
Students had mixed feelings. “There are legitimate security concerns with the app,” said Adam Nguyen, a 19-year-old computer science major at the University of Texas at Austin.
“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 the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
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.
“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.”