Texas TikTok ban challenged by First Amendment rights group

AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — A First Amendment rights group filed a federal lawsuit against Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Thursday, claiming the state's ban on the video-sharing app TikTok from all state-owned devices is unconstitutional.

The Coalition for Independent Technology Research says in its 24-page lawsuit that the ban violates the First Amendment because it limits the research capabilities of faculty at public universities. 

“While faculty are public employees, the government’s authority to control their research and teaching is limited by the First Amendment — and the ban cannot survive First Amendment scrutiny,” the group says in its complaint.

TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a private company headquartered in Beijing, China. The company has long held that the Chinese government bears no influence over it or TikTok as a product.

The coalition argues that the ban fails to stop the Chinese government from collecting sensitive data and harms researchers' ability to discover threats to people's privacy and the nation’s security interests. They want a federal judge to declare the ban unconstitutional as to members of the organization and those who are accessing TikTok for the means of teaching and research.

This past December, Abbott directed leaders at state agencies to ban their employees from downloading the popular app on their state-issued devices. The governor’s decision to take such action came as a response to fears that the app may be used as a route for the Chinese Communist Party to gain access to “critical U.S. information.”

“TikTok harvests vast amounts of data from its users’ devices — including when, where, and how they conduct internet activity — and offers this trove of potentially sensitive information to the Chinese government,” Abbott wrote in his letter to state agencies.

In addition to Abbott’s directive, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 1893 which codified the TikTok ban for government-issued devices into law. Abbott signed the bill into law last month and it is now in effect.

Faculty at public universities are now prohibited from downloading TikTok to university-owned devices or accessing it on personal devices that are also used to conduct university business.

Jacqueline Vickery is a member of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research and the director of research at the Youth Media Lab at the University of North Texas. The complaint details how nearly all of Vickery’s research focuses on TikTok and its impact on the lives of young people. Without such access, her research has come to a complete standstill.

“Even reading the TikTok-related work of other scholars has become challenging, because authors often support their claims by including links to TikTok videos that Professor Vickery cannot open on her work computer or the university’s network,” the plaintiffs say. “Because of the ban, she can no longer teach lessons that require live interaction with TikTok’s recommendation algorithm, search functions, or platform design.” 

If the coalition is successful in its suit, Vickers would be exempt from the ban and able to continue her research.

Founded in 2022, the Coalition for Independent Technology Research is a nonprofit member organization that works to protect the right for people to study the effects technology has on society.

Since its initial release in 2016, TikTok has become one of the most popular social media apps on the market. There are over 1 billion active monthly users around the world, with over 150 million in the United States alone. Despite its reputation as a teen-oriented space to share dance videos, the app has become a place for people — including public figures, politicians and activists — to share all types of content.

Over two dozen states have taken steps to ban TikTok on government-owned devices. Earlier this year, TikTok sued the state of Montana to block a bill that would ban the app entirely in the state. In its lawsuit, the company argued the bill violates its First Amendment right to speech. The law is set to go into effect Jan. 1. 

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