University of Texas latest US school to ban TikTok Faculty and students at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) this week became the latest members of a public US university to lose access to Chinese video app TikTok via campus networks. Jeff Neyland, advisor to the president for technology strategy, notified students of the change via email on Tuesday. "The university is …
It sounds like you have never been to Texas or worked with anyone in a Texas University. Sure a lot of southern states in the US have crazy views of things but the academic world is smart ... this article gives you some clues as to how smart the universities are and how well they are virtually all run.
Yes I worked in Texas, we were trying to open an office there. But we made metrology equipment with LASERS and the office was in a business park near the airport - so we were blocked for several years because LASER + airport + foreigners = terrorist
And although this was post 9/11 it was pre MAGA so state politics hadn't gone full Taliban
You are not being unfair, but you ignorance is showing.
In the US, government funded public educational institutions (schools) are not allowed to endorse a religion. There is a constitutional requirement for a separation of church and state. No Christian only prayer at half time. It gets a little fuzzy around the edges, and the current GOP would like to install a christian theocracy, but in general this is the standard in the US.
If you are interested, the actual wording of the 1st amendment which provides this protection to US citizens is:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
though the "no law respecting respecting an establishment of religion" is not tightly adhered to.
Keep worrying about the China while welcoming with open arms the “legal” eavesdropping of everything you do online by NSA and a trove of US federal, state and local agencies. The former can’t lay a finger on you outside mainland China but the latter agencies can use anything they eavesdrop to really f*ck up your life while in the US or in any other friendly country (most of the world). So don’t worry, be happy with it.
I know the republican in congress make America look like a shit show, but the US gov't (Fed/state/local) can't simple eavesdrop on you and then use the data to "fuck up your life" thanks to the 4th amendment of the US Constitution. Any data collect outside of the legal system is inadmissible in court, meaning that before any government agency collect evidence of a crime (in the US) they would first need to get a warrant from a judge and show probable cause. See Breaking Bad Season 3: Episode 6, when Hank tries to arrest Jess holed up in his RV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HGqPDgAwJI
Me, I would rather live in the US than dictatorial China any day. And China maintains illegal police stations around the world (3 in the UK) to coerce it citizens:
https://www.newsweek.com/china-overseas-police-service-center-public-security-bureau-safeguard-defenders-transnational-crime-1764531
Because it's where people who used to be and sometimes still act like children are educated? The only leap you have to make is from "place of education for this specific group" to "place of education", which isn't very far. They do other things there, which is why they get to be called universities, but a rather important part of their existence is education.
That is another example how impotent GDPR is.
There is no valid reason for TikTok to collect such data and on a such scale. Yet there is not a squeak from EU bureaucrats.
Then you have app stores approving apps collecting such excessive data - perhaps because owners of such platforms are also complicit in the harvests.
Oh well.
Imagine if Joe Public has created such an app. They'll end up living under a bridge somewhere in Clapham after paying all the fines.
There is no valid reason for Facebook to collect such data and on a such scale
There is no valid reason for Twitter to collect such data and on a such scale
There is no valid reason for Amazon to collect such data and on a such scale
There is no valid reason for anyone to collect such data and on a such scale
Your bigotry is showing.
Students can simply log off the school wifi and use cellular data.
I recently switched from AT&T prepaid to Verizon's prepaid service (Visible) which includes unlimited data. It is at a lower priority than postpaid Verizon customers, but unless I'm at a big sporting event or concert it is unlikely to matter. Considering they had a deal where I'm paying $15/month for the next year (when it reverts to the normal $30/month price) it is hard to complain about something that will only affect me a few dozen hours a year.
They have a higher priced plan ($15/month extra) that has the higher data priority again with unlimited data. I may check to see if I can switch to that and back to the cheaper one without losing the discount. If that's true and the switching is prorated...
I outfitted my niece with obfuscating VPN technology before she went off to University. Not only did it allow her to do whatever she wanted, it actually helped her access a university portal when DNS was messed up for local network users (but accessible from outside). I had to laugh about that, it allowed her to get shit done when others couldn't access the resources. It can help with routing issues too, when you have numerous points of presence to choose from.
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