College Banning Access to TikTok

Colleges across America are banning access to TikTok on university-owned Wi-Fi networks as national security concerns with the Chinese-owned company's app.

The actions against TikTok that have been taken by colleges largely in response to executive orders coming from several governors in America.

During a speech to the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy on Dec. 2, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that Chinese officials have broad access to TikTok, which allows them to "manipulate content, and if they want to, to use it for influence operations."

"All of these things are in the hands of a government that doesn’t share our values, and that has a mission that's very much at odds with what’s in the best interests of the United States. That should concern us," Wray said.

Governors of Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Idaho, Maryland, Montana and South Dakota all signed executive orders which limit the ability for individuals to access TikTok while using state-owned internet networks.

Jake Denton, a research associate at the Heritage Foundation's Tech Policy Center, told FOX Business that he thinks the move by universities is a step in the right direction, stating that TikTok has a mass amount of data on everyday Americans.

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"I mean, a lot of people are familiar with the experience where something pops up, whether it be an advertisement or a link, and you click on it and it feels as though you're within Safari. They've replicated kind of that interface, but you're actually within TikTok's own browser and they're logging everything in that environment. So that prompted you to log into something. They have your password, they have your username. So it's, it's that level of concern," Denton said.

One aspect of TikTok that concerns Denton is its location tracking feature, adding that the Chinese government could use it to find whoever they want as long as they use the popular app.

"This really causes a concern about real world intervention, you know, in Chinese intelligence capacities. If they know you always go to, you know, a bar on a Tuesday night, they know they can find you there," Denton said.

Here's a list of colleges that have banned students from accessing TikTok on Wi-Fi networks:

* University of Texas at Arlington: After Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the executive order in December, a university spokesperson told Fox News Digital that it "took immediate steps" to "restrict access to TikTok via university devices and networks."... (Read more)

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