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Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott was sued by a First Amendment group representing professors, which claims the state’s ban on TikTok from being used on state-owned devices is unconstitutional.
The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University said in a press release that it’s representing a group of academics, journalists, and other researchers in the lawsuit, challenging the state’s ban of state employees from using TikTok on devices that are state-owned, which includes state internet networks.
“The lawsuit argues that Texas’s ban is unconstitutional as applied because it burdens the First Amendment rights of public university faculty to teach and pursue academic research, and fails to satisfy First Amendment scrutiny,” the Knight First Amendment Institute said in a press release. “The lawsuit asks the court to hold the ban unconstitutional and to direct Texas officials to exempt the coalition’s members from the ban unless and until those officials give them constitutionally adequate means of accessing TikTok for research and teaching purposes.”
The Texas ban was implemented in December and follows a number of other states who implemented similar policies limiting the use of TikTok on state-owned devices and networks.
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FILE – The icon for the video sharing TikTok app is seen on a smartphone, Feb. 28, 2023, in Marple Township, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File / AP Newsroom)
According to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas on Thursday, one professor has had to stop or alter her research projects because of the ban.
Jacqueline Vickery, a professor at the University of Northern Texas, has had to stop issuing classwork that would require access to a TikTok, according to the lawsuit.
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Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaks during the Houston Region Business Coalition’s monthly meeting on October 27, 2021 in Houston, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images / Getty Images)
The Knight Institute’s Executive Director Jameel Jaffer said that while privacy concerns about the app, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, are legitimate, the response by Texas legislators isn’t.
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The TikTok Inc. building is seen in Culver City, Calif., Friday, March 17, 2023. ((AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) / AP Newsroom)
“Concerns about data collection and disinformation on social media platforms, including TikTok, are legitimate concerns,” Jaffer said. “The question is whether this kind of ban is a sensible or constitutional response to those concerns. And it’s not.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Abbott’s office for comment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
