2y ago

First Amendment group sues Texas Governor and others over the state's TikTok ban on official devices

A First Amendment group sued Texas Governor Greg Abbott and others on Thursday over the state’s TikTok ban on official devices, arguing the prohibition – which extends to public universities – is unconstitutional and impedes academic freedom.

Texas @lemmy.world

BigFig @lemmy.world

2y ago

AP News

First Amendment group sues Texas Governor and others over the state's TikTok ban on official devices

apnews.com /article/tiktok-ban-china-texas-abbott-bbffffb70a15d3b111150ba59c014cc7

16 comments

If it’s a work device, why should you be allowed to install any app you want? Security+ fundamentals state that employer owned mobile devices should be managed and only approved apps deployed, it’s a huge security risk otherwise.
Of all the First Amendment violations caused by Governor Abbott's office, and this is the one they choose to fight? There's nothing academic on TikTok that isn't available somewhere not scammy. How stupid. Fight for trans kids, jesus christ.
TikTok can get absolutely fucked, there's nothing in the first amendment in regards to protecting yourself from foreign enemies.
Also, fuck China.
- Agree
Y'all should read the article. The issue is that a professor who studies digital media can't search TikTok, and can't have her grad students search videos on TikTok. This ends her research because TikTok is where people post videos.
- Hmmm allow spyware on government owned devices, or let some grad student do his thesis on TikTok. Decisions decisions.
  
  For real, this is one of the very few things right-wingers are correct about. Of course they're correct because they're hawkish on China rather than because it's bad to let authoritarian countries have literal spyware on the devices of your citizens, but something something broken clocks. That being said, I think a carve out for universities studying media would make sense at least, but hopefully the whole thing doesn't get overturned.
- Should create a process allowing them to set up a test environment as a digital equivalent of a biological weapons research lab (just not as leaky as that one in Wuhan) and play with the CCP spyware from there.
  
  I think the lawsuit is absurd, but the University professor in question did apply for an exemption for herself and her students in the classroom, and she was denied without review because the ban is absolute.
  Fwiw I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to simply use personal devices for such research. But the argument that the ban goes too far doesn't seem completely unreasonable in this narrow use case.
  
  Oh jeez, people are still doing lab leak conspiracy theories? Maybe someday we'll have evidence of that and the years of conspiracies will finally pay off.

16 comments