Walz Didn’t Block TikTok on Government Devices Despite National Security Concerns

China hawks are criticizing vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for failing to ban TikTok on government-issued devices in his state, especially considering that more than 75% of other states have done so due to national security concerns.

Asked in 2022 if Walz planned to ban the Chinese-owned social media app from Minnesota-issued devices, the Democratic governor said his team was looking at the issue “holistically” and that he was deferring to tech experts in his administration for “recommendations.” Walz also drew an equivalence between TikTok and X, formerly Twitter, arguing that the Elon Musk-owned platform “could be a little dangerous.”

“I think the equivalence comes from a broader confusion on the left that privacy is a protection from ourselves, from these big companies. It’s not a protection from the government,” said Trent England, executive director of Save Our States, a conservative nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional authority of states. “They trust state actors more in general… Elon Musk, as powerful as people think he is, is not the Chinese Communist Party.”

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Walz’s decision not to ban TikTok on Minnesota-issued devices contradicts actions by many other states and is also at odds with the Biden administration.

In December 2022, President Biden signed legislation banning TikTok on all federally issued devices. This year, Biden went even further, signing additional legislation in April to ban TikTok nationwide unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, divests its entire stake in the social media company by next year.

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Meanwhile, at least 39 separate states have banned TikTok from government-issued devices. Many of those bans were initiated by governors, while others were introduced by state legislatures and later approved by the governor.

The federal and state bans also coincided with warnings issued by the nation’s top law enforcement agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which said it had “a number of” “national security concerns” about TikTok’s operations in the U.S. “These include the possibility that the Chinese government could use it to control the collection of millions of users’ data, or control the recommendation algorithm that could be used for influence operations if they so chose, or control the software on millions of devices, giving them the ability to potentially technically compromise personal devices,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress in 2022.

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Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Republican, called the decision to ban TikTok from government devices “common sense.”

“In this digital age, defending our state’s technological infrastructure and cybersecurity and protecting digital privacy must be a top priority for us as a state,” Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, said after signing an executive order banning TikTok on government devices.

Evers also emphasized that he, like Walz, had consulted with cybersecurity and law enforcement experts.

“I trust the professionals working in this field, and it was important to me to consult and seek advice from law enforcement, cybersecurity and counterintelligence experts, including information technology experts working at DOA-DET, to make the best decision to protect state technology and, ultimately, the people of Wisconsin.”

On Wednesday, England told Fox News Digital that he viewed Walz’s actions as a “throwback” to an earlier era of U.S.-China relations, when the prevailing attitude was that China was not an adversary.

“Walz is still stuck in the ’90s mentality that we’re going to fix China by engaging with them, which in practice means looking the other way when they steal intellectual property or engage in what looks like espionage or what clearly is espionage,” England said. “I think Walz is really a throwback to an earlier era of the relationship with China that most people considered a failure.”

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Earlier this month, TikTok argued in federal court that Biden’s proposed nationwide ban on TikTok if ByteDance doesn’t divest itself is unconstitutional. “The law before this court is unprecedented, and its impact will be staggering,” TikTok’s lawyers told the court earlier this month, according to the Associated Press.

In addition, several pro-TikTok activists also gathered outside the courthouse in support of the social media platform. One content creator, Paul Tran, told The Associated Press that the ability to create TikTok videos gave his company the boost it needed to stay competitive. “TikTok really revitalized our company and saved it from going under,” Tran told reporters.

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Fox News Digital reached out to both Walz’s office and the Harris campaign for comment but did not receive a response by time of publication.