this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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They are blocking schools from accessing it, preventing serious studies of the platform from taking places and restricting the progress that colleges in Texas can make, driving potential communication students out of the state.
If it did not apply to institutes of education it may be a good idea, but as is its just more culture war
Time wasting sites like YouTube or TikTok have been blocked in schools for as long as I can remember.
This isn't about blocking high schoolers from being distracted it's about blocking the institutes of learning from being able to properly study and expose how these sites are manufactured to waste time.
Did you know a lot of research is both posted on and based on those "time wasting" sites such as Youtube, Twitter and TikTok? Since social media is such a big fixture of our societies, social scientists basically depend on them for a lot of cool research that is now getting blocked by nonsense. Not to mention that "state networks" means literally public Wi-Fi. How terrified are you of TikTok that you're more afraid of it hacking your Wi-Fi than literally every other proprietary software?
I'm not sure when you graduated, but YouTube has never and will never be considered a valid source. You need to be looking at research papers, studies, newspaper articles and shit. At best the YouTube video might have sources in it's description and then you reference those sources, not youtube.
Research is way more than just "valid sources" as though it's only based on what is cited on the final peer-reviewed papers. In the process of researching something you might want to watch lectures, see different short materials, tutorials on how to set up specific software and access all sorts of educational and information YouTube. Besides that social media is frequently used by scientists themselves both to communicate between each other as well as to make accessible materials for non-scientists. And that is not even including research that requires looking into those social media, like say social media analysis.
I'm not sure when have you last taken part in academic research but social media has been an important part of researcher life for longer than it has been for the average public. Get down from your high horse if you know nothing about that.
Sure, if you're studying the effects of social media, you'll have to go on it. That's not what we're talking about though. Kids aren't needing to communicate through social media with other "researchers" at school. Not sure why you're equating school children to scientist doing actual first hand research, school projects are almost always second hand information, from the research papers, even if they're about social media.
But let's not kid ourselves, 99% of what students used YouTube for was timewasting. I didn't like it when I was at school but I recognise blocking YouTube was easier than monitoring every kids computers at school to make sure they're working.
They're meant to be using link aggregators like Google Scholar to find papers, not Facebook. Definitely not TikTok.
And idk what it's like in your country but the vast majority of research for school here was done at home for homework, where you can watch all the "lectures" you want. Kids just look at dumb shit when they're at school so they don't have to work. They also don't have time to be watching hour long lectures in class. You really don't need access to social media sites at school.
Imagine thinking I'm on a high horse because I understand kids like wasting time. Give me one good reason someone would need to use TikTok for school purposes. XD
Not sure why you're insisting on schoolkids when the article is specifically about state university. RTFA.
Thank you for clarifying you're not part of the group you're speaking for. Next time, preface your replies with "I didn't read the article and I also have no experience in the subject matter, but I think my opinion is very important because it aligns with the government." That will make it easier to separate the wheat from the chaff.
And apparently neither in yours. Go talk to a(nother) researcher and ask them if they could ever work properly if YouTube or Twitter were banned in their lab computers. Now extend that to reaearchers who specifically have a line of work that depends on TikTok. Then consider you might not know either what you're talking about or how such work happens in practice. And finally RTFA.
But if you insist on focusing on school children who are not the subject matter here, I'll have to accept that your expertise in high school trumps mine, I guess.
Good point. And it's not just time wasting, it goes against the point of being in school for education. These apps ruin attention span, erode critical thinking skills, turn beliefs into a popularity contest, contribute to bullying, destroy self-confidence and self-worth, peddle conspiracy theories, and waste time.
Edit: I want to add that I don't personally think it should be blocked in colleges. My reasons above apply to younger students; not that I don't think the app still poses risks to older students in college, but they are permitted to take the risks they wish to take. I do understand the security justification, and if that is the purported reasoning, I think it's acceptable. In reality, the security angle plus it only being TikTok being targeted is just playing on Sinophobia. If they were serious about it being a security threat, they'd not stop at TikTok.
Your missing the point, how can you know that if professionals can't study it? They are blocking the ability of Texas institutes from studying this!
Should we let every potentially (or even verifiably) unsafe piece of software to operate freely on government networks? No, we shouldn't, even if it's in the name of research. Knowingly running spyware on a government network isn't a good idea.
Precautions need to be taken, perhaps via cooperation between network operators and researchers, to assure that having unsafe software on their network is not potentially harmful to other users of the network.
Also, again, not every college in Texas is a state college. In fact, I think the vast majority aren't state colleges. They aren't subject to any of this regulation anyway.
On college campus networks yes. How would you have a Java class without allowing unverified software to run on the schools network?
And just because it's state schools now we should be extra worried, the Texas gop has been working to systematically disassemble all avenues of public education, the ability of colleges to college needs to be protected
I said unsafe software. I specifically said spyware. If you're caught running malicious Java code on the network, you'll be reprimanded. If you're running known malicious apps by Big (Ad)Tech, you should also be reprimanded.
If they were to completely cut all funding to public education, it's the state schools that would disappear. Private schools, who already are not affected by this ban, would be fine.
Only having private schools is a bad thing.
the limitation of public schools to perform studies on par with private institutes is bad. It should be prevented to preserve avenues to higher education.
first off that's not the case right now and there is no proposal in government to do such a thing. Second, what evidence is there that TikTok is capable of being of any harm to the network compared to standard software like M$ Windows or just general bootleg software? If a ban is warranted, which I don't believe it is, it should be applied properly and not singling out that one app you personally don't like.
It should be blocked in schools. Not only for the same reason as above, that they're state networks, but also that there is less than zero reason a student should be accessing TikTok at school (they're going to anyway--they'll just turn off WiFi).
Are all colleges in Texas state colleges? I don't think so. And, even so: once again, it's a state network. Students shouldn't be allowed to put TikTok on the state network. If they're a communications student, turn off WiFi, go to a coffee shop, etc. Convenience is not an excuse to lower security standards.
It's about studying and understanding the socioeconomic impacts of these apps, it's about research.
Also why the hell should a government care what is on a random students phone? There is no security threat of college students being on tiktok.
They don't. They care about what is on their network. As I said twice, you can use TikTok by turning off WiFi. Or by going to another WiFi at, say, a coffee shop.
Which is valuable, absolutely. But I'm not sure it's the responsibility of the network operator to take extra precautions that make researchers operating with potentially unsafe software safe to have on their network.
The precautions necessary to allow researchers on a college campus to access tiktok should be taken even if tiktok is banned, it's basic cyber security.
We are talking about college campuses here, not area 51. classified information or Ted cruz's flight plans shouldn't be a leak issue
I am not sure how to interpret this sentence. How is allowing access to something that is banned cyber security?
My point is that there is no increase in cyber security on a college campus by blocking tiktok, the difference security wise between blocking and allowing it is negligible.
The ban is security theater.