TikTok is facing increasing apathy induced by national security concerns in the US. Days after FBI director Chris Wray warned that the short-video app poses a national security threat to the United States as it could be exploited for espionage by the Chinese government, Maryland is moving to ban TikTok and other apps from China and Russia.
Governor Larry Hogan announced Tuesday that the ban, which takes effect in the state’s executive branch of the government, is to address cybersecurity concerns posed by the apps.
The concern, which prompted Hogan to announce an emergency cybersecurity directive to prohibit the use of the platforms, is that they could be used to collect sensitive information of American users.
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“There may be no greater threat to our personal safety and our national security than the cyber vulnerabilities that support our daily lives,” Hogan said in a statement.”
“To further protect our systems, we are issuing this emergency directive against foreign actors and organizations that seek to weaken and divide us,” he added.
Maryland is not the only state to have taken that step. A week ago, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, announced that state employees and contractors are no longer allowed to access TikTok on state-owned devices, due to the app’s ties to China, per AP.
Also, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, on Monday asked the state’s Department of Administration to ban TikTok from all state government devices it manages. These follow the decision of Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts to block TikTok on state electronic devices in August 2020.
The moves by the state governors to limit the use of TikTok are being spearheaded by Washington. The US government is seriously concerned that the Chinese Communist Party would ask ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, to turn in users’ data whenever it is needed for intelligence operations.
The US military was among government’s institutions to be prohibited from using TikTok on official devices.
“It is a risk that most governments are starting to realize it’s not worth taking,” AP quoted Trenchcoat Advisors co-founder Holden Triplett, a former FBI government official who worked in Beijing and counterintelligence, saying.
TikTok has made a lot of changes to calm the concern. In 2020, ByteDance moved its headquarters to Singapore to demonstrate its independence from Beijing. It has also, in a bid to calm the growing concern, vowed to effect major changes in operation, including partnering with American companies such as Oracle to move its data centers away from China.
Los Angeles-based TikTok Chief Operating Officer Vanessa Pappas, has said the company protects all American users’ data and that Chinese government officials have no access to it.
Despite these efforts, calls to ban or quit the platform are growing. On Tuesday, Wisconsin’s Republican representatives in Congress called on Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to delete the video platform TikTok from all state government devices, calling it a national security threat.
“Wisconsinites expect their governor to be aware of the dangerous national security threats TikTok poses and to protect them from this avenue for CCP intelligence operations,” U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and U.S. Reps. Mike Gallagher, Tom Tiffany, Glenn Grothman, Bryan Steil and Scott Fitzgerald said in a letter.
In 2020, former President Donald Trump moved to end TikTok’s operation in the United States. The controversial move, which was later put to an end after his successor, Joe Biden reversed many of Trump’s executive orders, is still being touted today.
A researcher with the conservative Heritage Foundation last month called on government officials to ban TikTok from operating entirely in the United States.
But TikTok spokesperson Jamal Brown said the concerns driving bans “are largely fueled by misinformation about our company.”
“We are always happy to meet with state policymakers to discuss our privacy and security practices,” Brown said. “We are disappointed that the many state agencies, offices, and universities that have been using TikTok to build communities and connect with constituents will no longer have access to our platform.”