Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday ordered all state agencies in the state to ban video sharing app TikTok on all government-issued devices, joining several Republican-led states in doing the same.
The governor’s office said the “aggressive action” against TikTok comes amid a growing threat of “the Chinese Communist Party gaining access to critical U.S. information and infrastructure.”
In letters to state officials and agency leaders, Abbott emphasized the Texas government’s obligation to guard the cybersecurity of Texans.
“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,” Abbott stated in a letter to state agencies (pdf)….