A prominent Republican governor has banned TikTok for her state’s authorities over the “growing threat to national security” posed by the Chinese app.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem signed an executive order Tuesday prohibiting employees and contractors from downloading the app or using it on a state device.
In a statement released Tuesday, Gov. Noem said she refused to participate in any Chinese Communist Party efforts to obtain information that could be used to indoctrinate American youth.
“South Dakota will not engage in intelligence operations by nations that hate us,” the governor said.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem signed an executive order Tuesday prohibiting employees and contractors from downloading or using TikTok on state devices
The Chinese app has more than a billion users worldwide
“Because of our serious duty to protect the private information of South Dakota citizens, we must take this action seriously,” Noem said in a statement
The order was issued by the governor “in response to the growing national security threat posed by TikTok due to its data-gathering operations on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.
“The Chinese Communist Party is using information it gathers on TikTok to manipulate the American people,” Gov. Noem said in the statement on Tuesday.
Noem went on to say she hoped other states would follow suit and take the situation “seriously”.
“Because of our serious duty to protect the private information of South Dakota citizens, we must take this action seriously,” she said.
“I hope other states will follow South Dakota’s lead, and Congress should take broader action as well.”
The governor of South Dakota could grant her wish. Over the past few weeks and months, politicians on both sides of the aisle have raised concerns about the app’s security.
In a recent Washington Post article, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) said the video-posting platform “gives the CCP a unique ability to attract more than 1 billion users worldwide monitor, including nearly two-thirds of American teenagers.’
In a recent Washington Post article, Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Mike Gallagher said that TikTok “gives the CCP a unique ability to monitor more than 1 billion users worldwide.”
Noem said she believes the video app is a way for the Chinese Communist Party to subtly indoctrinate and spy on Americans, especially the youth
“We must ban this potential spyware before it’s too late — not promote its use in the United States as President Biden is doing,” the senators wrote.
The executive order signed by South Dakota’s governor also comes less than two weeks after a Democratic lawmaker came forward and reached an agreement with his Republican counterparts regarding TikTok.
Virginia Senator Mark Warner recently sat down with Fox News reporter Shannon Bream to warn parents and families of the app’s potential dangers.
“So if you’re a parent and you have a child on TikTok, I would be very, very concerned. All of that data that your child enters and receives is stored somewhere in Beijing,” Sen. Warner said.
Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia said former President Donald Trump was right about TikTok and warned parents to keep their kids off the social media app during a recent interview with Fox News
Former President Donald Trump signed an executive order in 2020 that would ban Chinese-owned TikTok in the United States
“Well, I think Donald Trump was right,” Warner said.
In August 2020, former President Donald Trump signed an executive order that would ban TikTok and Chinese chat app WeChat in the United States.
The order said TikTok’s “data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party to access Americans’ personal and proprietary information.”
The order was later revoked by current President Joe Biden in 2021.
Biden called for “an evidence-based analysis to address the risks” of internet applications controlled by foreign companies.
FCC commissioner Brendan Carr called TikTok “wearing sheep’s clothing” in June while urging Apple and Google to remove the app from their stores
A letter shared by Carr in June continues with “some worrying” evidence as to why the Chinese app should be removed
Federal Communications (FCC) commissioner Brendan Carr earlier this year urged the Google and Apple app stores to stop the ability to download the app.
In June, the commissioner called on platforms to remove the video-sharing app over a “pattern of creeping data practices” and new data that “sheds fresh light on TikTok’s serious threats to national security.”
A report published by BuzzFeed News highlights leaked audio from more than 80 internal TikTok meetings showing China-based employees repeatedly accessed US user data.
“It is clear that TikTok poses an unacceptable national security risk given its extensive data collection combined with Beijing’s apparently uncontrolled access to this sensitive data,” Carr wrote.
“But it’s also clear that TikTok’s pattern of behavior and misrepresentation regarding unrestricted access by people in Beijing to sensitive US user data continues to fall short of compliance with policies that both your companies require of any app as a condition available in your app store.’