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Washington. Kentucky has banned the popular video app TikTok from all government equipment. Kentucky now joins more than 20 US states in doing so. Kentucky has taken this step citing cyber security concerns.
The state said it had updated its employee handbook to prevent state employees from using government-managed devices to access Chinese-owned apps other than for law enforcement purposes.
On Thursday, the governors of Wisconsin and North Carolina signed orders banning TikTok on government equipment. Ohio, New Jersey and Arkansas also took similar actions earlier this week.
Apart from Tiktok, some states have taken many other tough steps against China. New Jersey and Wisconsin, for example, have also banned vendors, products and services from other Chinese companies, including Huawei Technologies, Hikvision, Tencent Holdings – the owner of WeChat, ZTE Corp as well as Russian-based Kaspersky Lab.
TikTok said it is disappointing that so many states are joining political parties to enact policies that will do nothing to advance cyber security in their states and are spreading lies about TikTok.
Most of the states that have served so far have Republican governors, but Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Kentucky all have Democratic governors.
Calls to ban TikTok from government equipment intensified after US FBI Director Christopher Wray said in November that it threatened national security.
Ray flagged the danger that the Chinese government could use the app to influence users or control their devices.
For three years, TikTok—which has more than 100 million users—has been trying to assure Washington that personal data of US citizens cannot be accessed and its content shared with China’s Communist Party or any other group under Beijing’s influence. Cannot be manipulated by the institution.
Last month, President Joe Biden signed a federal funding bill that included a ban on federal employees from using or downloading TikTok on government-owned devices.
The legislation gives the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 60 days to develop standards and guidelines for executive agencies requiring the removal of TikTok from federal tools.
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Edited By: Varsha Singh
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