Kansas governor bans TikTok on government-issued devices
A TikTok spokesperson claimed that the bans are 'based on unfounded falsehoods'
TikTok fueling 'nightmare scenario' for US cyber, national security: FCC's Brendan Carr
Senior Republican and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr reacts to Congress moving to ban TikTok on government devices.
Kansas became the latest state to ban TikTok on all government devices on Wednesday, a move that Gov. Laura Kelly said she took to "protect Kansans' privacy and security."
"TikTok mines users’ data and potentially gives it to the Chinese Communist Party -- a threat recognized by a growing group of bipartisan leaders," Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, tweeted.
Governors in at least a dozen other states, including Virginia, New Hampshire, Texas, and Georgia, have already imposed TikTok bans on government devices.
The sprawling 4,115-page omnibus bill that Congress passed last week includes the No TikTok on Government Devices Act, which prohibits TikTok on most government-issued devices.
TikTok app logo on the App Store is seen with TikTok logo displayed in the background in this illustration photo. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Jamal Brown, a TikTok spokesperson, said Wednesday that the bans are "based on unfounded falsehoods" and "will do nothing to advance cybersecurity," accusing the states of "jumping on the political bandwagon."
"We are continuing to work with the federal government to finalize a solution that will meaningfully address any security concerns that have been raised at the federal and state level," Brown told Fox Business. "These plans have been developed under the oversight of our country's top national security agencies—plans that we are well underway in implementing—to further secure our platform in the United States, and we will continue to brief lawmakers on them."
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A growing number of lawmakers and intelligence officials have warned that TikTok's parent company, China-based ByteDance, could share data on Americans with the Chinese Communist Party.
"TikTok is a Trojan Horse for the Chinese Communist Party," Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said in a statement earlier this month. "It’s a major security risk to the United States, and until it is forced to sever ties with China completely, it has no place on government devices."
A man wearing a shirt promoting TikTok is seen at an Apple store in Beijing. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan / AP Newsroom)
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FBI Director Christopher Wray also warned that Chinese officials could use their access to TikTok 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 in a speech at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy on Dec. 2.
Fox Business' Ronn Blitzer and Adam Sabes contributed to this report.