The wildly popular video app TikTok has been expelled from Florida’s state universities.
The Board of Governors, which sets policy for the state university system, has ordered the Chinese-owned app to be booted off campus Wi-Fi systems. However, TikTok can still be accessed through personal cellphone data.
“I think it’s kind of crazy, I don’t necessarily agree with it, the whole thing of China stealing our data," said Pietra Tavares, a student at Florida International University. "I don’t thinks it’s through TikTok that our data’s being stolen, so I just feel like it’s a bit silly."
“I support the ban,” said FIU student Nicolas Rodriguez, taking the opposite side. “Honestly the concern of people who don’t want it because they like TikTok, that’s fine, I understand that, but we should put aside what we want in favor of what’s better for us. As a nation we are extremely vulnerable right now.”
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“I can see how people say it’s unfair, but me personally, I don’t really use the Wi-Fi here anyways, I use my data,” FIU student Ariel Echevarria said.
Meanwhile, searching “DeSantis” on Tiktok will take you to this exchange between the governor and commentator Piers Morgan.
“Would you ban TikTok?” Morgan asks.
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“I would, I think so,” DeSantis replies. “I think it’s a security risk, I think they are harvesting so much data.”
The director of cyber security for the United States Commerce Department, Southeast Division, agrees with DeSantis, saying TikTok can map out a user’s biometric characteristics.
“It changes, dramatically speaking, the way that we think and the way we operate as a society,” said Luis Negueron of the Commerce Department.
Negueron said without the user realizing it, TikTok monitors scrolling habits and browsing history and determines what a user’s emotions are likely to be at a particular moment.
A faculty union representative at FIU told NBC6 he’s hoping for more transparency about the reasons for the TikTok campus clampdown.
“If this security threat poses so grave a risk, wouldn’t it be wise to let our students know what it is so they can make the decisions for themselves as well, not simply be unallowed to access the app while on campus,” said philosophy professor Eric Scarffe, who thinks if students knew the security risks, they might curb their use of TikTok off campus as well.
