Banned: NY city employees have 30 days to delete (and not download again) TikTok

The state of Montana should be really proud of New York City: it has banned TikTok on city-owned devices. City employees and agencies have 30 days to remove the app and not use it again. All of that is over security concerns.

A nationwide TikTok ban is something you’ve been hearing for years now. While it’s not clear when (or if) such a harsh measure could be imposed on private citizens, it’s definitely being implemented wider and wider on the government front by the day.

The Verge has the story about the Wednesday-issued directive, that’s starting immediately and is banning TikTok for city employees not only on mobile devices but also forbidding them to access the short video-sharing app’s website from any city-owned devices. That’s because TikTok “posed a security threat to the city’s technical networks”, a city official said and added:



Members of the New York City agencies have 30 days to remove the application from Chinese tech giant ByteDance, which was repeatedly painted by both FBI Director Christopher Wray and CIA Director William Burns as a threat and as a negative influence by China’s government to US citizens.

Even before those comments by high-level security officials, many US states had already banned TikTok on government-owned devices. Montana went a tad further and in May, Governor Greg Gianforte signed a bill banning the app within the entire state – the first state to do so.

TikTok is used by more than 150 million Americans (close to half of the population). Controversy over security concerns and a Chinese government influence arose more than three years ago. Even people who dislike TikTok’s lifestyle influence on the younger generation and – to put it mildly – are not fans of the app, are in a dilemma, when matters come to a nationwide ban, citing First Amendment infringes.