A federal judge in Texas on Monday upheld a ban preventing state employees from using TikTok, the Chinese-owned short-form video app, on government devices and networks, rejecting a challenge from lawyers who argued that the ban violated the First. Amendment.
The ban was challenged in July by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. The institute filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research, whose members include Texas university professors who said their work had been undermined after they were blocked from accessing TikTok on the university’s Wi-Fi. campus and on university computers.
In his decision, Judge Robert L. Pitman of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas said he agreed that the ban had prevented public university professors from using state-provided devices and networks. to research and teach about TikTok, but found it was a “reasonable restriction” in light of Texas’ concerns about data privacy.
Texas had limited the scope of its ban to state employees, he wrote, and there were “many other ways for state employees, including public university professors, to access TikTok, such as on their personal devices.”
Judge Pitman also noted that Texas’ TikTok ban was more limited than a state ban in Montana that was set to take effect next year until a federal judge temporarily blocked it.
Universities in more than 20 states have banned TikTok in some form, according to the Knight First Amendment Institute, based on new rules from lawmakers who say TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, poses a national security threat.
The institute, which works pro-bono on free speech cases, wants Texas and other states to exempt college professors from the bans.
Lawmakers in the United States, Europe and Canada have stepped up efforts to restrict access to TikTok over the past year, largely due to concerns that TikTok and its parent company could put sensitive user data, such as location information , in the hands of the Chinese. government. They have pointed to laws that allow the Chinese government to secretly demand data from Chinese companies and citizens for intelligence-gathering operations. They are also concerned that China could use TikTok’s content recommendations to spread misinformation.
Neither the Knight First Amendment Institute nor TikTok could immediately be reached for comment.
Sapna Maheshwari contributed reports.
