South Dakota governor bans TikTok on government phones

South Dakota government workers must delete TikTok from their phones, under an order from Gov. Kristi Noem.

She banned TikTok on Tuesday for South Dakota state government employees, agencies and contractors.

“South Dakota will have no part in the intelligence gathering operations of nations who hate us,” she said in a statement. “The Chinese Communist Party uses information that it gathers on TikTok to manipulate the American people, and they gather data off the devices that access the platform.”

Conservative lawmakers nationwide began targeting TikTok in 2020, with their outrage spiking when then-President Donald Trump promised to ban the app in the U.S. TikTok, most popular with Gen Z, is owned by Chinese company ByteDance.

However, the outrage dissipated as the presidential campaign heated up, and in 2021 President Biden ended any federal investigations into TikTok.

In June 2022, Buzzfeed News reported that U.S. user data on TikTok had been accessed from China, putting the company back on the defensive. Noem encouraged a new federal probe into the app.

“Because of our serious duty to protect the private data of South Dakota citizens, we must take this action immediately,” she said. “I hope other states will follow South Dakota’s lead, and Congress should take broader action, as well.”