Banning TikTok is not going to stop any privacy breaches on social media apps
The TikTok ban across Texas universities is not going to save private information unless the government decides to ban all social media apps.
In response to Governor Abbotts’ ban on TikTok on all government-issued technology, amodel plan was released to all state agencies on Jan. 15. Due to this, many Texas universities have also banned the social media app on their Wi-Fi.
However, this ban is not going to change the way that students use TikTok. Students on these campuses will simply switch over to their data or use their private dorm Wi-Fi.
So, this begs the question of why is the app being banned.
U.S. authorities deemed TikTok a national security threat as they are afraid that American users’private information is being shared with the Chinese-based parent app, ByteDance.
Tik Tok logo on phone by Solen Feyissa is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse.
There is no doubt that TikTok is taking users’ information, however, every social media app has done the same thing. It has been proven that companies like Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, are taking the same amount of information.
The only difference between the apps is that TikTok is owned by a Chinese company. Although, the company has stated that 100% of all US user’s data is being stored in the Oracle cloud environment.
If the government feared citizens’ information was being leaked through social media apps, shouldn’t it ban all of them? Why stop at TikTok?
It is simply because the app is owned by a foreign company.
Recently, the U.S. has seen an increase in fear of the Chinese Communist Party due to potential actions their government may take against us.
The percentage of U.S. citizens who have “cold feelings” towards China has gone up by 46% in just a couple of years. Due to factors such as COVID-19 and Donald Trump’s rampant attack on the country, there is a consensus that we should fear China.
The main question to be asked about the Tik Tok ban on public universities is how valuable is the information of university students to China?
This ban is restricting all university programs from promoting themselves and spreading useful information to their student body. All of these actions are important to U.S. students, but this kind of content does not seem essential to the Chinese Communist Party.
If the government wants to prevent all private information from being leaked, it should take more action against all social media apps. It is lunacy that the very app which interfered with the U.S. elections is not being banned as well.
There are more important things that the Texas government should be worried about than TikTok. This ban is simply a stunt, to make Texan citizens scared of what is outside of their reach.
We should all be more concerned about what is happening in our state currently, than what is happening outside.