Recently, in the state of Tennessee, a bill has been introduced to ban the popular app TikTok from college campuses through their Wi-Fi network. This bill will only affect students at public universities, ETSU being one of them. What are the reasons they are wanting to ban this app?
Surprisingly, it is not because of the content of TikTok but because of the security concerns surrounding it. Senate Bill 834 specifically says that all public colleges are prohibited from allowing people to use a social media platform hosted by a company in the People’s Republic of China, according to the Tennessee General Assembly.
Lawmakers have numerous security concerns involving TikTok, the data it’s harvesting and the influence it has over popular culture. This is not the first time that the government has tried to ban the app, however.
Back in 2020, former President Donald Trump stated his interest in banning the app for similar reasons. To quell the rising fear surrounding TikTok’s security methods, the company made a statement confirming that no American information is being accessed outside of the US.
Unfortunately, it has recently come to light that that is not true. TikTok has been storing American data in Singapore for backup, and the information has been accessed repeatedly. After this was exposed this past summer, TikTok has sworn to eventually move all data to Oracle cloud servers located in the US according to their website. It is unclear whether this promise is candid truth.
Tennessee’s move to ban TikTok, specifically on college campuses, conveys their fear of data being harvested and sent over to China. College campuses have high proportions of TikTok users, so it makes sense that lawmakers are targeting them first.
In my opinion, it is a rather drastic action. Even though TikTok has proven itself to be a shady company, the widespread ban of the app on college campuses is an extreme measure with an easy solution: using data on campus rather than the Wi-Fi or simply leaving campus.
It is unclear what Tennessee is trying to accomplish with this law, but its motives are more focused on sending a message to TikTok rather than effectively banning its use.
