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In a recent ruling, US District Judge Robert Pitman upheld a Texas law prohibiting TikTok on state-owned devices and networks. This decision came after a challenge by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which argued that the ban violated the First Amendment rights by restricting TikTok use on public university Wi-Fi networks.

In his order, Judge Pitman stated that while academic freedom and public employees’ right to free speech are significant, they do not override the context of this case. He explained that the ban does not restrict public employee speech as university faculty and other public employees can still use TikTok on their personal devices, provided they do not connect to state networks. Pitman further described the ban as a “reasonable restriction” in light of Texas’s concerns regarding data privacy and the connections of TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to China.

The ruling has been met with disappointment from the Knight Institute. Jameel Jaffer, its executive director, expressed concern that the law limits academic freedom and hinders researchers at Texas public universities from studying TikTok. He stated, “Restricting research and teaching about one of the world’s major communications platforms is not a sensible or constitutionally permissible way of addressing legitimate concerns about TikTok’s data-collection practices.” Senior staff attorney Ramya Krishnan criticized the ban, arguing that it fails to serve privacy interests and that Texas should have been required to justify the ban.

This decision is part of a broader trend, with dozens of states and the US federal government implementing similar bans on TikTok on government-owned devices.