Texas bans TikTok on state-owned devices

"Effective immediately, I have ordered every state agency in Texas to ban TikTok on any state-issued devices," Abbot says, in a letter to Dan Patrick, the Lieutenant Governor of Texas. "We must work together to stop the Chinese government’s efforts to collect, store, and distribute Texans’ data and personal information."

As well as publishing this letter, Abbot also shared the news on Twitter.

"The threat posed by the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] through TikTok is serious and must be stopped," he tweeted, also calling for legislation to broaden the ban and make it permanent.

Texas now joins Maryland, North Dakota and South Dakota in issuing TikTik bans on state-issued devices, with other states, particularly Republican-led states, predicted to follow suit in the coming weeks, says the Washington Post.

On December 2, FBI director Chris Wray raised national security concerns about TikTok, warning that there was potential for the CCP to manipulate content, as well as use personal data for espionage operations.

"All of these things are in the hands of a government that doesn't share our values, and that has a mission that's very much at odds with what's in the best interests of the United States," he said. "That should concern us."

A report by Forbes in October alleged that TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, was planning on using the app to track the whereabouts of "specific" Americans, an accusation the company has vehemently denied.

The CCP has been heavily criticized, more so than usual, in recent weeks for imposing overbearing "zero COVID" policy lockdowns on its citizens and for its heavy-handed approach to dealing with the subsequent public dissent.

The country has been taken over by mass protests in recent weeks following the deaths of 10 people, including a 3-year-old child, who had been sealed shut inside an apartment building by CCP officials as a part of their "zero-COVID" policy.