Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Friday issued an executive order to ban TikTok and WeChat from state government devices. The move adds Virginia to a growing list of more than a dozen U.S. states that have moved to ban TikTok in recent weeks.
“Applications and websites such as TikTok and WeChat provide foreign governments, such as the Chinese Communist Party [CCP], with the potential to gain access to the information stored on mobile devices, including location services and browsing history,” the order (pdf) states.
Youngkin ordered that state employees and government contractors may not download or use TikTok or WeChat, or any other applications developed by ByteDance or Tencent. They also may not visit the TikTok or WeChat websites on any government-issued devices, “except for public safety purposes.”…