New York City has instructed its employees to remove TikTok from their city-issued phones, following the lead of the federal government and over half of the U.S. states, which have already prohibited the use of the Chinese-owned social media app on government-owned devices.
“While social media is great for connecting New Yorkers with each other and the city, we must ensure that we always use these platforms securely,” said Jonah Allon, a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams, in a statement on Thursday.
Allon stated that the city’s top information security officials concluded that TikTok posed a security threat to the city’s technical networks and ordered the app to be removed from city-owned devices within 30 days.
The federal government had previously instructed employees to delete TikTok from government-issued cellphones earlier this year due to concerns that its parent company, ByteDance, could provide user data to the Chinese government. Over half of U.S. states have implemented similar bans.
New York state has prohibited the use of TikTok on state-owned devices since 2020, with some exceptions for promotional accounts.
TikTok officials have refuted claims that the app’s use could pose cybersecurity risks. There was no immediate response from TikTok after a request for comment on the New York City ban.
(This story has not been edited by NewsFeedWorld staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
