FOUNTAIN HILLS, Ariz. — If you're a fan of TikTok, you're out of luck if you want to watch the popular video site inside Fountain Hills' town hall.
Councilman Allen Skillicorn, who initiated the ban, said the app is a "socially destructive waste of time" and a "security risk."
Skillicorn said when he took this issue to Fountain Hills Town Manager Grady, he agreed and acted administratively to ban Tik Tok from all town-owned devices and block the site from town servers.
"I’ve always said that highly-productive people spend little or no time on social media. Most social media is a giant time waster in the workplace. The app TikTok is especially addicting and wasteful of time but has more troubling issues. Allowing a foreign spyware entity access to data, contacts, and personal information is especially troublesome in the public sector. Our town has a commitment to protect the privacy and protect our residents from data mining like this," stated Skillicorn.
Skillicorn said he challenges other Arizona cities and Gov. Katie Hobbs to follow the example of Fountain Hills.
The governors of Wisconsin and North Carolina decided earlier this month to ban the use of TikTok on state-owned phones and other devices, according to the Associated Press.
“Now it’s time for other towns to follow our lead. The State of Arizona needs to step up and ban Tik Tok from state-owned devices too. Governor Katie Hobbs, are you listening? Arizonans are at potential risk, and you are silent on an issue you can lead with. Darn it, do something to protect your constituents," said Skillicorn.
TikTok would be banned from most U.S. government devices under a government spending bill Congress unveiled last month, the latest push by American lawmakers against the Chinese-owned social media app.
TikTok is consumed by two-thirds of American teens and has become the second-most popular domain in the world. But there's long been bipartisan concern in Washington that Beijing would use legal and regulatory power to seize American user data or try to push pro-China narratives or misinformation.
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