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The University of Texas at Austin has blocked entry to the video-sharing app TikTok on its Wi-Fi and wired networks in response to Gov. Greg Abbott’s recent directive requiring all state businesses to take away the app from government-issued gadgets, in line with an e mail despatched to college students Tuesday.
“The university is taking these important steps to eliminate risks to information contained in the university’s network and to our critical infrastructure,” UT-Austin expertise adviser Jeff Neyland wrote within the e mail. “As outlined in the governor’s directive, 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.”
TikTok is owned by the Chinese firm ByteDance Ltd. Last month, FBI Director Chris Wray raised national security concerns in regards to the Chinese authorities’s skill to doubtlessly gather information on customers and use the app’s algorithms to “manipulate content” and “use it for influence operations.”
Abbott’s Dec. 7 directive said that each one state businesses should ban workers from downloading or utilizing the app on government-issued gadgets, together with cellphones, laptops and desktops, with exceptions for regulation enforcement businesses. He additionally directed the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Department of Information Resources to create a plan to information state businesses on find out how to deal with using TikTok on private gadgets, together with those who have entry to a state worker’s e mail account or hook up with a state company community. That plan was to be distributed to state businesses by Jan. 15.
Each state company is predicted to create its personal coverage concerning using TikTok on private gadgets by Feb. 15.
More than half of states within the U.S. have banned using the social media app on authorities gadgets in some capability in current months, according to a CNN analysis. Across the nation, a growing number of universities have banned the app on gadgets related to campus networks, together with Auburn University in Alabama, the University of Oklahoma and the faculties throughout the University System of Georgia.
The ban might have broad impacts significantly at universities serving college-age college students, a key demographic that makes use of the app. University admissions departments have used it to attach with potential college students, and lots of athletics departments have used TikTok to advertise sporting occasions and groups. It’s additionally unclear how the ban will influence college who analysis the app or professors who train in areas comparable to communications or public relations, wherein TikTok is a closely used medium.
Representatives for different massive public universities within the state — together with Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University and the University of Houston — didn’t instantly reply to questions on whether or not college leaders plan to take related steps at their campuses.
Disclosure: Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, University of Texas at Austin and University of Houston have been monetary supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news group that’s funded partly by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Financial supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Find an entire list of them here.
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