Death by a thousand cuts': U.S. TikTok bans gain ground
Soon after Texas university students returned to classes in January, they received a note from the IT department informing them of a new rule: they could no longer access TikTok, the popular video app, on university Wi-Fi.
Students had mixed feelings. "There are legitimate security concerns with the app," said Adam Nguyen, a 19-year-old computer science major at the University of Texas at Austin.
"But people should be able to make their own decisions - this sets a dangerous precedent with the university deciding what sorts of things you can do on the network," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The move comes as part of a swirl of efforts to limit the use of TikTok - which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance - in the United States, over fears that U.S. user data could be passed on to China's government.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee plans to hold a vote this month on a bill aimed at blocking the use of TikTok in the United States.
"There are real concerns about data gathering by Chinese companies," said Aynne Kokas, a professor of the University of Virginia, and author of the book Trafficking Data: How China Is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty .
"But the idea that this problem goes away if you ban TikTok, that's just not true."
For three years, TikTok - which has more than 100 million U.S. users - has been seeking to assure Washington that the personal data of U.S. citizens cannot be accessed and its content cannot be manipulated by China's Communist Party or anyone else under Beijing's influence.
TikTok did not respond to a request for comment, but has said in past statements that bans are based on "unfounded falsehoods about TikTok".
'DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS'
TikTok has been the most
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