I guess what concerns me is that in some schools, students are required to live in dorms. So to me, it feels like an encroachment on what I would consider the students' personal, private home, where I suppose they should be allowed to access whatever content they like (minus, of course, the content I deem objectionable, like child exploitation, but thats much easier for us all to agree on I think).

Only the apps for TikTok, WeChat, and Telegram are being blocked and removed, not the websites, and only from state property.

There's a privacy and security (read: espionage) concern with the apps right now.

According to TFA they're blocked from being accessed from school wi-fi, not only from state property.

Not accurate in Georgia. I can VPN into two institutions and access those domains, and so far one of the Networking teams says they've been given no order to block by DNS or IP. They also have no separate VLAN for student wifi.

The two schools are University of Oklahoma and Auburn University.

The article explicitly mentions the University System of Georgia.

What security/espionage concerns does Telegram have?

My assumption is because it was developed by a Russian, and someone in the US government is worried that the communications or e2ee could be compromised by another nation.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/telegram-encryption-end-to-e...

> e2ee could be compromised by another nation Which is not even enabled on regular conversations.. only on specifically created secret chats

It also looks like not long ago apps were able to collect and transmit the contents of clipboards on iOS and Android.

You don’t want exploitation but you want them to have access to TikTok? I think you should find out about what is on the platform and I think you will be surprised.

The platform contains the same content as every other social media platform but with less nudity.

No, that’s definitely wrong. You haven’t researched this but you are making an assumption. Does FB have a rampant system by which children are being watched and paid for, it even being common that children use filters to appear as different fevered to collect more money?

Are you stating there are nude children on tiktok? I am stating that TikTok has less nudity than other platforms. Maybe you are arguing that tiktok has more sexual charged content? I’d be pretty comfortable arguing that Instagram and Twitter are above tiktok in that as well.

So, I’m saying children do live strip teases for money and are pain through the platform in real time.

Incorrect. You must be 18 or older to get tips from TikTok live or enroll in the creators fund.

University isn't the same as grade school. It is absurd a public University would do any sort of filtering or censorship on their networks.

>any sort of filtering

This is a rather absurd position if you consider it. To take the absolute simplest example, you really think a school should not be allowed to filter traffic from students specifically launching purposeful attacks on school network infrastructure?

Attacks are a bit different than someone trying to access information, though. Much like it is illegal to punch someone in the face, unless they try to punch you first.

Maybe I should have been more specific. In my mind there is a difference between stopping outgoing ddos attack and blocking/censoring websites.

Now define "outgoing attack". You're trying to keep it defined to "ddos" only but surely you would agree that the school filtering a student actively attempting to hijack school infrastructure to send active shooter threats to the student population should also be filtered yes?

Keep going a few steps and you'll realize that's exactly the problem, there's no level of specificity you can define here that works without some level of subjectivity. Try and see. Good luck.

Suggested reading: https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1586955288061452289

Universities also employ academics (some of whom are outspoken toward CCP).

Possibly Universities are doing this for more than one reason?

For example to protect their staff given the recent articles about tiktok tracking of journalists

Really? Many universities do DNS filtering so I'm not sure where that idea comes from

As a somewhat responsible parent I see TikTok as intellectual poison, or attention pornography at best.

It is banned in my house.

(I grew up on the Vic20/C64/Amiga etc; am not a Luddite).

> As a somewhat responsible parent I see TikTok as intellectual poison, or attention pornography at best.

It is.

> It is banned in my house.

Good. Don't let weird internet techbros namecalling or "expert advice" influence how you raise your children, or apologize for it.

I imagine the most difficult problem with banning anything would be to make sure they don't feel or become isolated from their peers because of it. Must be tough.

It is not up to you or me to decide what is necessary or not for school related activity. Who even decides what is necessary or unnecessary. University shouldn't censor Tiktok and allow facebook, insta . We don't live in China where government passes draconian measures.

It will most probably teach them very fast how to install a VPN on their phones.

Sounds great to me. TikTok is pretty, I don’t see a benefit for kids to use it. The type of content it has is hyper optimized for stunting development, in my opinion, I’m a way not found in most other social media. Also, it is rife with pretty illegal content. I would just say it doesn’t seem like a big loss.