A First Amendment group sued Texas Governor Greg Abbott and others on Thursday over the state’s TikTok ban on official devices, arguing the prohibition – which extends to public universities – is unconstitutional and impedes academic freedom.
A First Amendment group sued Texas Governor Greg Abbott and others on Thursday over the state’s TikTok ban on official devices, arguing the prohibition – which extends to public universities – is unconstitutional and impedes academic freedom.
I think the lawsuit is absurd, but the University professor in question did apply for an exemption for herself and her students in the classroom, and she was denied without review because the ban is absolute.
Fwiw I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible to simply use personal devices for such research. But the argument that the ban goes too far doesn’t seem completely unreasonable in this narrow use case.
I’d like to see TikTok banned from all devices across the US (personal or otherwise) but I don’t make the rules. It’s among the worst of a bad bunch of applications and under the control of the Chinese Communist Party. To me, that sets it apart from the ones owned by US-based companies because at least those companies can get dragged into court for doing something wrong or grossly negligent. It’s not as easy to go after a Chinese company, particularly if (/when) the instruction to collect data comes from their government.
My other concerns are too tin-foil-hat to bring up here which should say something given what I wrote above. Short version is that none of them can be trusted but that goes double (at least) for anything connected to the CCP.