Now 18 Out Of 50 US States Have Ban The Use Of TikTok On Government Devices

JAKARTA - State agencies in Louisiana and West Virginia on Monday 19 December became the latest state to ban the use of popular social media services, TikTok, on government-run devices. Like other regions, they fear China can use it to track American society and censor content.

About 19 of the 50 US states are now at least blocking part of the government's computer access to TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd. Most of the restrictions have occurred in the past two weeks.

Several members of Congress last week proposed a national ban, which would follow Indian-like countries that have banned its use.

Jamf Holding Corp, which sells software to organizations to allow filtering and security measures on iPhones and other Apple devices, said its government customers have been increasingly actively blocking access to TikTok since the middle of this year.

According to Jamf, about 65% of attempted connections to TikTok have been blocked this month on devices managed by public sector customers Jamf around the world, including school districts and various other agencies, up from 10% blocked connections in June.

TikTok on Monday repeated a statement, saying the company was "disappointed because so many states participated in politics to enforce policies based on baseless lies about TikTok that would do nothing to advance the national security of the United States."

In Louisiana, State Secretary Kyle Ardoin said he banned TikTok on all devices his agency had, citing potential security threats but without identifying any issues. West Virginia State Auditor JB McCuskey said he did the same for his agency.

Reported by Reuters, US Officials and TikTok have been in discussions for months about a national security pact that will address concerns about China's access to data on more than 100 million TikTok users in the US.