Michigan bans TikTok on state devices while Whitmer encourages people to use it
Zachary Faria
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Michigan has banned TikTok on state devices because TikTok is Chinese spyware. But the bill contains an exemption so that Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer can still dance for and promote herself to her 200,000 followers.
Michigan built in an exemption for law enforcement, which is understandable — social media often provides clues in criminal cases, so of course the state troopers need to access and navigate the popular app. But an exception was also made for Whitmer because she supposedly needs it to communicate with people.
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Whitmer told CNN in February that “Whether we like it or not, that is a tool for disseminating important information, and that’s how we use it.”
Michigan has some 10 million residents, and it isn’t even clear how many of Whitmer’s 200,000 followers are actually Michigan residents, but that does not matter. It is important that Michigan residents are able to receive information from their governor, like how she dances to popular TikTok trends.
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A spokesman for the governor said that Whitmer’s device meets all the standards to allow it to keep running without access to state information, but that is beside the point. If the app is so dangerous that the state needs to ban it from government devices (which it is because it is Chinese spyware), then it should be banned entirely. By taking an exemption, Whitmer is signaling that the Chinese spyware app isn’t that bad. In fact, you should make an account and give the Chinese Communist Party access to your phone so you can get her “important” updates.
People are able to get information from sources other than TikTok, where only a fraction of Michigan residents even follows the governor in the first place. Whitmer should not be on the app regardless of whether or not her device is “air gapped,” and she shouldn’t be implicitly encouraging more people to download the app in order to defend why she is using it. It is an unserious decision by an unserious governor. Hopefully, Congress can help her out and ban the app entirely.