"Effective immediately, I have ordered every state agency in Texas to ban TikTok on any state-issued devices," Abbot said on Wednesday, in a letter to Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan. "We must work together to stop the Chinese government’s efforts to collect, store, and distribute Texans’ data and personal information."
"TikTok harvests vast amounts of data from its users’ devices—including when, where, and how they conduct internet activity—and offers this trove of potentially sensitive information to the Chinese government," the letter said.
He also calls for legislation to broaden the ban and to make it permanent.
Gov. Stitt gave similar reasons, citing "ongoing national and cybersecurity threats created by TikTok."
"Maintaining the cybersecurity of state government is necessary to continue to serve and protect Oklahoma citizens and we will not participate in helping the Chinese Communist Party gain access to government information," Stitt said on Thursday.
Govs. Abbott and Stitt now join Republican governors of Maryland, North Dakota and South Dakota in issuing TikTik bans on state-issued devices. Other states, particularly GOP-led states, are predicted to follow suit in the coming weeks.
The announcement comes in the wake of FBI director Chris Wray raising national security concerns about TikTok, warning that there was potential for the Chinese Communist Party (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. That should concern us," Wray told an audience at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy last week.
He expressed similar concerns about China's influence over TikTok during congressional appearances last month when the subject was broached.
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.
It was also recently revealed that Chinese technology is being used by the Iranian government to monitor and control its population following their own civil unrest woes.
