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These Florida Colleges Banned TikTok & Here Are Your 'Digital Rights' In The State

The list keeps on growing.

Ahmet Kalayci | Dreamstime.com, Prykhodov | Dreamstime.com

Five Florida universities have banned TikTok from their school's WiFi. This new censorship law comes after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis introduced legislation in early February that would "protect the digital rights and privacy of all Floridians."

The Florida Board of Governors approved the emergency regulation on March 28, and college boards are taking notice.

The schools that currently will not allow access to the app when students are on campus grounds are:

  • University of South Florida (USF)
  • University of Florida (UF)
  • Florida State University (FSU)
  • Florida International University (FIU)
  • Florida Atlantic University (FAU)
These education systems notified their students through schoolwide emails as reported by The Oracle, Fox13 and the Tallahassee Democrat.
As far as the South Florida schools, WSVN had their boots on the ground and asked students to sign into their social media profiles on campus. To their dismay, they were unable to get service when they opened it up on their phones.

DeSantis created a "Digital Bill of Rights," which specifically states that it "bans the use of TikTok and other social media platforms tied to China and other foreign countries of concern on all government devices and bans the access of such platforms through Internet services provided by any university, public school or other government office."

According to the document, this bill includes the right to:

  • Have private, in-person conversations without Big Tech Surveillance
  • Participate in online platforms without unfair censorship
  • Know how Internet search engines manipulate search results
  • Control personal data
  • Protect children from online harms

Recently, the CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, was interrogated by U.S. lawmakers about the app's data-collecting policy and sending sensitive information to the Chinese government, which he replied, "I have seen no evidence that the Chinese government has access to that data."

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