TikTok, other popular apps banned at Florida’s public universities

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A choice from Florida’s Board of Governors bans TikTok from school-owned units and public Wi-Fi on public college campuses throughout the state. Leaders concern the Chinese language authorities might be utilizing the social media app to entry private data.

TikTok has greater than 1.3 billion customers worldwide, and the app’s proprietor, Bytedance, denies allegations of spying.

The statewide ban contains the College of North Florida, the College of Florida and Florida State College, that are amongst Florida’s 12 public universities.

Clearly, there’s not some form of pressure discipline or magic blocker to cease folks from going onto TikTok on their private telephones and units whereas they’re on the campus, however in Florida, in the event that they’re on a public college campus, and so they’re utilizing the campus’ Wi-Fi, they don’t seem to be going to have the ability to use the app.

UNF despatched an electronic mail Wednesday to college students and employees, letting them know Chinese language-owned TikTok is blocked efficient instantly as a result of it’s a safety threat.

“The College of North Florida is complying with a current Emergency Regulation from the State College System Board of Governors requiring establishments to take away applied sciences revealed within the State College System (SUS) Prohibited Applied sciences Record from any university-owned gadget and to dam community site visitors related to these applied sciences,” the college notification states. “These apps and applied sciences have been recognized as having a big safety threat on private knowledge and infrastructure. This regulation applies to all universities within the State College System and lists software program/purposes/builders that pose a cybersecurity threat.”

College of North Florida electronic mail to college students, employees

UNF Faculty of Computing director Dr. Sherif Elfayoumy stated folks must have their guard up. Dangers are elevated as a result of the variety of Individuals who use the app provides the corporate and probably the Chinese language authorities entry to approach an excessive amount of data.

“It will be naïve of us to assume that (spying) will not be of their plans,” Elfayoumy stated. “Even when I imagine them now, I can’t imagine them sooner or later.”

TikTok is actually well-liked amongst school college students, like UNF college students Garrett Kelley and Alexis Korsoh.

“It’s enjoyable,” Kelley stated. “You get to see a whole lot of random stuff. All the things that you simply like is on there.”

“I identical to that it’s easy to make use of and simple,” Korsoh stated. “Movies aren’t that lengthy.”

The ban on TikTok comes at a time when the state of Florida has additionally banned authorities companies from utilizing Chinese language-made DJI drones — and when there’s a push throughout the nation to outlaw TikTok altogether.

College students on UNF’s campus, like Kelley and Korsoh, provided diversified opinions Thursday concerning the campus Wi-Fi ban for TikTok.

“I truthfully assume it’s ridiculous, as a result of TikTok, that’s the least of our worries,” Milo Mitchell stated.

“I don’t care who has my private data, my knowledge, so long as they don’t have my checking account,” Jamey DeVries stated. “I believe it’s shared anyway, in every single place, already.”

Different apps like WeChat which might be owned by overseas firms have additionally been blacklisted from campus Wi-Fi at Florida’s public universities.

Right here’s the total checklist of banned apps:

• Kaspersky

• VKontakte

• Tencent QQ

• TikTok

• WeChat

• And any subsidiary or affiliate of an entity listed above