BY Javed Baloch | 18/01/23 Images via Unsplash
Texas universities have blocked access to the popular short video-sharing app TikTok on their campus WiFi and wired internet connections.
The University of Texas at Austin took the decision following the Governor Greg Abbot's statement demanding all the state agencies to remove TikTok from government devices.
The students of the university received the news that TikTok is blocked on campus networks via an email sent from university officials on Tuesday.
The email stated that " The university is taking these important steps to eliminate risks to information contained in the university's network.''
"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." The technology advisor of the University of Texas at Austin cited in the email to the students.
Following University of Texas Austin, multiple other Texas universities, including University of Texas at Dallas, also announced that they are going to block TikTok access on campus networks as well.
TikTok has been in headlines due to security concerns shown by United States government ever since its inception. The service is owned by Chinese company ByteDance Ltd.
A TikTok representive, Jamal Brown issued a statement saying, "We're disappointed that so many states are jumping on the political bandwagon to enact policies that will do nothing to advance cybersecurity in their states..."
"... and are based on falsehoods about TikTok. We're especially sorry to see these rushed policies beginning to impact universities' ability to share information, recruit students, and build communities around athletic teams, students groups, campus publications and more."