INDIANA – A growing number of public schools and colleges in the U.S. are moving to ban TikTok – the popular Chinese-owned social media app that allows users to share short videos.
They are following the lead of the federal government and several states, that are banishing the social media app because authorities believe foreign governments – specifically China – could use the app to spy on Americans.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita released the following statement:
“China-based TikTok is spilling filth into the heads of children – and college students are not immune. This ban by state universities in Texas is a step in the right direction, particularly within schools of any kind. Our children need to be protected. China knows this and limits access by children. And their own children can’t get ads about sexual content, drugs, alcohol, and even suicide because they know it is detrimental to their development. Our country needs to come together and delete TikTok.”
The app is created by ByteDance, which is based in China and has ties to the Chinese government.
The University of Oklahoma, Auburn University in Alabama, and 26 public universities and colleges in Georgia have banned the app from campus Wi-Fi networks. Montana’s governor has asked the state’s university system to ban it.
At the University of Texas — Austin on Dec. 16, university officials announced that TikTok would be banned on state-issued devices. On Tuesday, Jan. 17 the university also announced that the app would be blocked from on-campus Wi-Fi.
According to Texas A&M’s student paper, on Dec. 15 employees were directed to remove the app from university devices, stop posting on university TikTok accounts and remove links to TikTok on university websites. On Tuesday, Jan. 17 the university blocked TikTok from its campus network.
Kelly Brown, associate vice president of marketing and communications at Texas A&M, said in an email that “students, faculty, staff, and visitors will not be able to use the app when connected to an A&M network.”
A spokesperson for the Texas A&M University system said this guidance applies to all 11 universities in the system.
Some K-12 schools have also blocked the app. Public schools in Virginia’s Stafford, Prince William, and Loudoun counties have banned TikTok on school-issued devices and schools’ Wi-Fi networks. Louisiana’s state superintendent of education recommended that schools in the state remove the app from public devices and block it on school-issued devices.
As a researcher who specializes in cybersecurity, Nir Kshetri, Professor of Management, at the University of North Carolina doesn’t believe these schools are overreacting. TikTok captures user data in a way that is more aggressive than other apps.
The version of TikTok that is raising all these concerns is not available in China itself. In an effort to protect Chinese students from the harmful effects of social media, the Chinese Communist Party has issued a rule that limits the time students can spend on TikTok to 40 minutes a day. And they can view only videos with a patriotic theme or educational content such as science experiments and museum exhibits.
But Indiana colleges say it could be a violation of freedom of speech.
Ball State University released the following statement:
“The landscape of social media is one that is constantly evolving. Ball State University routinely monitors news and developments pertaining to TikTok and other social media platforms and currently has made no change in policy or access as it relates to social media. Should that landscape evolve in a way that prompts reconsideration, our leadership will do that with the interest of our students, faculty and staff, and our entire campus community at the forefront.“
Purdue University released the following statement:
“We do not have any university accounts but employees, staff, and students are free to use them on their own devices. The decision was prompted by concerns about algorithmic censorship of free speech, risks to user data privacy online, and threats to national security in the context of foreign-controlled public media, as documented publicly by the FCC and FBI.”
“Also, the decision came at the end of last year.”
Aggressive tactics to capture and harvest user data
All major social media platforms raise privacy concerns and include security risks for users.
But TikTok does more than the rest. Its default privacy settings allow the app to collect much more information than the app needs to function.
Every hour, the app accesses users’ contact lists and calendars. It also collects the location of devices used to access the service and can scan hard drives attached to any of those devices.
If a user changes privacy settings to avoid that scrutiny, the app persistently asks for that permission to be restored. Other social networking apps, like Facebook, don’t ask users to revise their privacy settings if they lock down their information.
How TikTok handles the data it collects from users also raises concerns. Ireland’s data protection regulator, for instance, is investigating possible illegal transfers of European citizens’ data to Chinese servers and potential violations of rules protecting children’s privacy.
Cybersecurity vulnerabilities
As with other social media services, researchers have found serious vulnerabilities with TikTok.
In 2020, cybersecurity company Check Point found that it could send users messages that looked as if they came from TikTok but actually contained malicious links. When users clicked on those links, Check Point’s researchers could seize control of their TikTok accounts, get access to private information, delete existing content and even post new material under that user’s account.
Hackers have also taken advantage of viral TikTok trends to distribute malicious software that creates additional cybersecurity problems. For instance, a trend called the “Invisible Challenge” encouraged users to use a TikTok filter called “Invisible Body” to film themselves naked – assuring users their followers would only see a blurry image, not anything revealing.
Cybercriminals created TikTok videos that claimed they had made software that would reveal users’ nude bodies by reversing the body-masking filter. But the software they encouraged users to download actually just stole people’s social media, credit card, and cryptocurrency credentials from elsewhere on their phones, as well as files from victims’ computers.
National security concerns
Many U.S. lawmakers have objected to the app’s location tracking services, saying it could allow the Chinese government to monitor the movements and locations of U.S. citizens – including members of the military or government officials.
If the Chinese government wants information about the more than 90 million TikTok users, it does not need to hack anything.
That’s because China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law requires Chinese companies to share any data they collect if the government asks.
Technology industry observers have also raised concerns that ByteDance, the company that makes TikTok, may be partially owned by the Chinese government.
These problems take on even more importance in the context of the Chinese government’s alleged efforts to build a huge “data lake” of information about all Americans. China has been linked to several large-scale cyberattacks targeting federal employees and U.S. consumers. These attacks include the 2015 hack of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the 2017 attacks on the consumer credit reporting agency Equifax and the 2018 attack on hotel group Marriott International.
Negative effects outweighing positive ones?
Teachers and school administrators have used TikTok in some interesting, and useful, ways – such as connecting with students, building relationships, teaching about the risks of social media, and delivering small, quick lessons.
But it is not clear whether those positive effects counterbalance the potential and actual harm. In addition to general concerns about the possible risks of social media addictions, some school officials say increased TikTok use has distracted students from paying attention to teachers.
Also, the app’s algorithm for recommending videos to watch next has increased students’ risk of suicide and eating disorders. The “One Chip Challenge,” which asks TikTok users to eat a single chip containing two of the world’s spiciest chili peppers, sent some students to the hospital and made others sick.
TikTok videos have also led students to engage in vandalism. In response to one viral challenge, some students stole bathroom sinks and soap dispensers from schools.
With all that potential for harm and damage, it’s not surprising school officials are considering a ban on TikTok.
Some information provided by The Conversation – Nir Kshetri, Professor of Management, University of North Carolina – Greensboro.
