BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana‘s education chief urged public schools and systems Tuesday to remove TikTok from public devices amid concerns about security and the privacy of users’ data.
Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley is the newest state official to induce restrictions of the favored video-sharing app.
Critics of TikTok fear the Chinese government is having access to critical information through the applying and could possibly be using it to spread misinformation or propaganda. TikTok is owned by ByteDance Ltd., a Chinese company. There’s also been concern about TikTok’s content and whether it harms teenagers’ mental health.
In a memo to high school leaders, Brumley advised schools and faculty systems to right away remove the app, or some other applications developed by ByteDance Ltd., from publicly funded devices, The Advocate reported. As well as, he really helpful that TikTok be eliminated as a communication outlet for varsity systems and schools, including co-curricular clubs, extracurricular organizations and sports teams.
Other state leaders have taken similar steps and even banned use of the app.
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Last month, Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne banned TikTok traffic on all networks managed by the state Office of Technology Services. That features agency-owned phones and laptops, in addition to personal devices while they’re connected to state wireless networks.
Jacques Berry, a spokesperson for Dardenne, said Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards approved of the restriction.
Similarly, in mid-December, Republican Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin banned TikTok on all devices issued by his agency.
“As Secretary of State, I even have the intense responsibility of protecting voters’ personally identifiable information, which is why I even have taken the step of banning the usage of TikTok on all devices owned or leased by my agency,” Ardoin said in a letter to Edwards, urging the governor to ban the app on all of the state’s government devices.
The controversy over TikTok has reached a national scale. Last month, Congress approved the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill that banned TikTok from most U.S. government-issued devices for workers. At the very least 15 Republican governors and one Democratic governor — Gov. Laura Kelly — have already imposed such restrictions.
TikTok has change into the world’s second-most popular domain and is consumed by two-thirds of American teenagers, a few of whom use it to fill gaps of their school lessons. The supply within the congressional spending bill reflected bipartisan concerns about security and the spread of misinformation due to the app’s Chinese ownership.
TikTok spokesperson Jamal Brown told The Associated Press last month that the corporate is working with the U.S. government to deal with concerns.
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