Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican from Maryland, has taken to the proverbial top rope and dropped a massive elbow down on social media platform TikTok, announcing a ban of the app from the state government’s devices on Tuesday. It’s nice to finally see some folks getting how much of a danger this application is to our national security, as well as the security of our states and so on.
The ban on TikTok was included as part of an emergency cybersecurity directive that is aimed at several Chinese and Russian apps and products.
“There may be no greater threat to our personal safety and our national security than the cyber vulnerabilities that support our daily lives,” Hogan remarked in a statement. “To further protect our systems, we are issuing this emergency directive against foreign actors and organizations that seek to weaken and divide us.”
“This action represents a critical step in protecting Maryland State systems from the cybersecurity threats caused by foreign organizations,” Maryland’s Chief Information Security Officer Chip Stewart continued.
This brand-new ban comes after FBI Director Christopher Wray delivered a warning about national security concerns with TikTok.
“The Chinese government has shown a willingness to steal Americans’ data on a scale that dwarfs any other,” Wray stated Friday at the University of Michigan, according to the Daily Wire.
The ban in Maryland is added to a list that features a growing number of states in the country that are also choosing a similar course of action for dealing with TikTok. And to be honest, that’s probably the best measure they can take. The connections this platform has with the Chinese Communist Party are worthy of scrutiny, not to mention the risks the app presents for young, impressionable minds.
On Monday, Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster put out an executive order banning TikTok from government devices.
“Protecting our State’s critical cyber infrastructure from foreign and domestic threats is key to ensuring the health, safety, and well-being of our citizens and businesses,” McMaster said in the letter addressed to the state’s Department of Administration Executive Director Marcia Adams.
“Last month, Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem became the first governor to ban TikTok from state devices, including making it a criminal offense to download the app on a state device,” the Daily Wire said.
“South Dakota will have no part in the intelligence gathering operations of nations who hate us,” Noem commented in a statement. “The Chinese Communist Party uses information that it gathers on TikTok to manipulate the American people, and they gather data off the devices that access the platform.”
On Tuesday of this week, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, along with other Wisconsin lawmakers sent out a letter to Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, demanding similar action be taken in their state, asking for him to “ban TikTok from Wisconsin government devices and to lead by example and delete TikTok from your own devices.”
In the state of Arkansas, state Sen. Gary Stubblefield, a Republican, filed a piece of legislation Monday that would also put a similar ban on devices within the government.
Florida conservative Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin, introduced a bill just last month that would completely ban TikTok in the United States totally outright.
“TikTok is a major threat to U.S. national security. Yet Biden is encouraging greater engagement with the platform by directly courting TikTok influencers,” they both stated in an opinion piece published in The Washington Post.
You can’t trust anything with deep connections to the Chinese Communist Party. That much should be a given. What’s scary though is how the app’s algorithm is purposefully designed to make it easy for young people to go viral and become famous. It also pushes dangerous trends, which could lead teens to participate in risky, potentially life-threatening challenges.
This story syndicated with permission from My Patriot Post