New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) on Thursday banned the Chinese-owned video sharing app TikTok on government-owned devices.
In a statement the Adams administration said that TikTok “posed a security threat to the city’s technical networks.”
New York State banned TikTok on government devices at the state level three years ago. It’s one of more than a dozen other states to have imposed such bans, as have Congress and the White House.
In May, Montana became the first state in the U.S. to impose a total ban on TikTok, on both government and private citizens’ devices. The governor is facing a lawsuit over the sweeping restrictions.
Texas, meanwhile, is facing a lawsuit over banning TikTok on the devices of public university employees in addition to government devices.
Many of the restrictions began after FBI Director Chris Wray in November warned that the Chinese government could use TikTok to control data collection on millions of American users, or to control the recommendation algorithm, which could be used for influence operations.
TikTok declined to comment on the New York City ban, but in the past it has said that it “has not shared, and would not share, U.S. user data with the Chinese government, and has taken substantial measures to protect the privacy and security of TikTok users.”
TikTok reportedly has more than 1 billion monthly active users in more than 150 countries worldwide, including a reported 150 million users in the U.S.
According to Pew Research, 67% of U.S. 13 to 17-year-olds use TikTok, with 16% of those teens saying they use the app almost constantly.
