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Education Social Networks United States

Some Universities Are Now Restricting TikTok Access on Campus 36

Posted by msmash from the growing-scrutiny dept.
A small but growing number of universities are now blocking access to TikTok on school-owned devices or WiFi networks, in the latest sign of a widening crackdown on the popular short-form video app. From a report: The University of Oklahoma and Auburn University in Alabama have each said they will restrict student and faculty access to TikTok, in order to comply with recent moves from the governors in their respective states to ban TikTok on government-issued devices. The 26 universities and colleges in the University System of Georgia are also reportedly taking a similar step.

"In compliance with the Governor's Executive Order 2022-33, effective immediately, no university employee or student shall access the TikTok application or website on University-owned or operated devices, including OU wired and wireless networks," the University of Oklahoma said in an email this week. According to the email, the school will also require that university-administered TikTok accounts be deleted and "alternate social media platforms utilized in their place." Further reading: TikTok steps up efforts to clinch U.S. security deal.
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Some Universities Are Now Restricting TikTok Access on Campus More

Some Universities Are Now Restricting TikTok Access on Campus

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  • Not universities.
  • we're doing it to protect you, for now
    • Given that TikTok was used by chinese communists to sway multiple US elections, what would you suggest?

      • Re:censorship (Score:5, Funny)

        by zephvark ( 1812804 ) on Thursday December 22, 2022 @05:10PM (#63151200)

        I take it that Tiktok was swaying the elections by means of random dancing teenagers and cute cat videos?

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • That's fair play. Young people ought to have a choice in what ideologies they support and bring to the Future. To support that choice, exposure to alternate mindsets is necessary to counter the national bias of the USA. Tick tock provides exposure to support choice. As the country will be theirs one day, now is the time for them to test and challenge pre-existing values.

          TikTok is a really strange beast. And it has proven a very odd source of entertainment. There is a whole plethora of 35-45 year old women wondering where all the good men have gone, because they need to get married now and have children now, Onlyfans ladies wondering why no one wants to wife them up, post menopausal women who got bored with their husbands, divorced them and are pissed off at the dating market because no one wants to wife them up, terrible dating advice, cuckhold promotion and a few who ar

        • The proper term for what you are describing is "Grooming".

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

        Given that TikTok was used by chinese communists to sway multiple US elections, what would you suggest?

        Thanks to the Twitter Files, we now know that Twitter was as well.

        The main thing to me isn't that there aren't issues with TikTok. There are. The way they present content and the way they the Chinese government uses it to collect information on US users is concerning.

        It's that those same concerns apply to literally every social media app, and for some reason, we're supposed to ignore it when it's the US government doing the censorship and the US government getting to look at the user data.

        But we're ignoring

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by t0qer ( 230538 )

          You're likely going to get downvoted, which will be a shame because at least in this humble commenters opinion you're right. However I think what's going on with TikTok is a little more sinister.

          The 3 letter agencies control Twitter, and likely FB, Goog, etc. They have no power over TikTok. So the whole TikTok thing is a little more complex. Granted, it's CCCP controlled, but is that really any less dangerous than any number of apps out in the wild that collect the same data TikTok does? I think it boils

          • Granted, it's CCCP controlled, ...

            You probably mean CCP [wikipedia.org] as TikTok is a service of ByteDance which is a company in China instead of CCCP [wikipedia.org] refers to the Soviet Union.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Ksevio ( 865461 )

          We know that Twitter didn't allow fabricated stories or pictures of a candidate's kid's penis. It's entirely different from a platform suggesting content that would sway people in a direction of a foreign government

    • School network, school rules. Use all the 5g bandwidth you please.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      Many universities are not about education but culture. And making parents feel their kids are not going to be contaminated.

      On one level, the university has every right to limit what it on its equipment, and it is a good habit. Most students have a cell plan and it is good they learn to use this instead of corporate assets for their play time. Many students are entering the real world think they have the save rights and protections as when they were a minor in high school. These reality checks prevent mist

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by schwit1 ( 797399 )

      We regulate alcohol, cigarettes and drugs based on age. Why not TikTok?

      It is no less a drug and is being used against us [youtube.com].

  • They can restrict usage from their networks and devices but I guess nobody in those states has heard of VPNs?

    • These restrictions are on their own devices and networks. The bigger issue was that people were using TikTok on government-owned devices.

      They no non-government owned device should be on their network unless it abides by their MDM policies, which would generally prevent usage of a VPN or TikTok on their network also, even on employee-owned devices.

      • I agree on gov't own devices, hell if they can use TicTok what else are they doing? Campus student-only networks are the issue here. If I have Wifi in the dorm for example, then I can and should be able to VPN all I'd want. There's also the regular cell network which mostly negates the arguments as far as students are concerned.

    • TFS does not say they will try to block access. The rule relies on individual compliance, and possibly sacking those caught in the act (which does not seem to be difficult for those annoying TikTokers). The rule does not need to effectively ban 100% TikTok, it is sufficient to reduce usage from 100% to 10%, which they hope to achieve by just writing down the rule on paper. The value of data for ByteDance does not come from a handful of students using an app somewhere through a VPN, it comes when a large fra

  • I don't want US data going to china. China is not a friend to the US and the chinese state can tell any company to do whatever the state wants. So them not having access is a good thing. Use a US company there are plenty of other options.
    • The vast American corporation I work for makes nearly $1 billion in profits every year from it's Chinese division.
      The shareholders could not possibly care less about what the Chinese government does, as long as the money keeps flowing.
    • Looks like the Chinese mods got to this post

  • at an state school that may be an 1st issue!

    • They're not keeping you from using your own network (5G) and devices to access tiktok.

      Just keeping you from using school devices and networks to do so.

  • Even if there were no broader controversy, that would still be my attitude. They took something dumb and made it even dumber.
  • In light of the Twitter disclosures regarding the FBI and CDC's input into content moderation, I'm forced to wonder if the pushback against TikTok isn't "They won't let us control it" instead of the claimed issue "China controls it."
    • The only difference between US and Chinese government on this topic is that China blocks access to companies their government cannot control from all devices in China, nor just government owned devices. While that may seem to be a freedom limiting approach, think of it from a different angle. Imagine a foreign owned company is actually spying using apps on your country's citizen's devices. Should those citizens be held responsible for any spying that happened on their devices without their knowledge, or sho

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