A group of college professors is suing Texas for banning TikTok on public-university devices, saying it has undermined their ability to teach students and research one of the world’s most popular apps. Via washingtonpost
Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which filed the suit on the coalition’s behalf, said the ban is not a “sensible or constitutional response” to critics’ worries that the app could be used for propaganda or espionage.
Jacqueline Vickery, An associate professor at the University of North Texas who was cited in the suit, said she was forced to suspend research projects and abandon in-class discussions and exercises when the ban took effect after winter break. “There’s this attitude that this is a playful, silly platform, that it doesn’t matter we can’t access it … but this is what we were using to teach all sorts of things about media literacy,” she said. “It’s so helpful to say: Let’s watch this together and talk about who’s making it, why’s the algorithm showing it to you, what trends can we take away from this.”
TikTok, which says it has more than 150 million monthly active users in the United States, has stated repeatedly that it is not influenced by the Chinese government. The bans have been criticized by civil liberties groups, whoNeither Texas nor federal officials have provided evidence that the app has been used to secretly brainwash or spy on users, though some have argued that even the possibility of foreign tampering merits an extraordinary response.
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