A group filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas on Thursday, claiming that the state’s prohibition on public university personnel using the Chinese-owned short video app TikTok on state-owned devices or networks has jeopardised research and instruction.
The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Texas on behalf of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research.
The Coalition for Independent Technology Research is a group of academics, journalists, civic society researchers, and community scientists that also includes professors from Texas public universities who have suffered because of the prohibition.
“Banning public university faculty from studying and teaching with TikTok is not a sensible or constitutional response to concerns about data collection and disinformation,” Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, said.
The group said that the state of Texas’s TikTok prohibition “is preventing or seriously impeding faculty from pursuing research that relates to TikTok… It has also made it almost impossible for faculty to use TikTok in their classrooms.”
Faculty members at public universities are subject to the Texas ban on using personal devices while working for the state.
More than 30 states and the federal government forbid using TikTok on government phones and systems due to security concerns. More than 150 million Americans use TikTok.
