Tiktok is on the Chopping Block to be Banned Nationwide

TikTok is in the talks of becoming banned nationwide for the United States. Photo from Focal Foto on Flickr.

With Tiktok already banned on federal devices, the future of the popular platform is in question as lawmakers float a national ban, citing security concerns. 

The push to ban Tiktok has been an ongoing discussion since 2020. Former president Donald Trump tried to ban dealings with TikTok owners and remove it from app stores in 2020, but was denied for it to go through by the courts. Now, the tide has changed with both Democrat and Republican lawmakers agreeing on this potential nationwide ban. 

Lawmakers are considering a nationwide ban on the app due to national security concerns stemming from TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance. The concerns are linked to reports from an internal investigation of the company that said that they were repeatedly accessing U.S. user data and tracking specific American citizens, three of whom were Forbes journalists.

Back in December, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley drafted the No TikTok On Government Devices Act, which was unanimously voted to pass through the Senate in the same month. Hawley is now pushing further with wanting a nationwide ban of TikTok that he proposed on January 25th, according to Forbes. 

“TikTok is a Trojan Horse for the Chinese Communist Party. It’s a major security risk to the United States, and until it is forced to sever ties with China completely, it has no place on government devices,” said Hawley to The Hill. 

Dr. Casimer DeCusatis, a professor of cybersecurity in the School of Computer Science and Mathematics here at Marist College, recognizes the security threats posed by the app.

“It’s a security threat because there is a ton of data that TikTok collects on their users without your explicit knowledge, or without your consent. They can do pretty much whatever they want with that data because it’s not stored on servers in the U.S. or North America; not necessarily subject to US law. It’s stored over in Singapore in some place, which means they can pretty much do whatever they want with it. It’s not governed by U.S. rules,” said DeCusatis.

DeCusatis also points out, “All this and more is far more intrusive than any other apps. Facebook is pretty bad, but these folks are a lot worse.”

As for smaller bans on TikTok, almost half of all U.S. states have already banned TikTok off of their state-government issued devices in places like Louisiana, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Indiana. Per The Hill, Texas is taking it as far as banning the app from state-issued internet networks. 

Colleges and Universities are also taking this matter into their own hands with eliminating the app off of school-owned devices on campuses like the University of Wisconsin, Idaho State, and Arkansas State, reported by AP News. 

“As a security expert I sit here and say, ‘Hm, let me tell you about this thing called TikTok.’ We do not need to fly balloons over the country to collect all of this stuff.” commented DeCusatis.