Tate Reeves, R-Miss. He plans to ban TikTok from all government devices in Mississippi on Monday, telling Cavuto: Coast to Coast: The future of warfare is not necessity boots on the ground, but rather, America's interests must be protected, and that America's interests must be protected.
GOV. TATE REEVES: We want to be proactive in ensuring that the Chinese Communist Party does not have the ability to steal Mississippi State government data because they know that they have a history of stealing American intellectual property, and they have a history of stealing America's personal information. That is why I outlawed all TikTok on all state-owned devices because we know that the Chinese often use social media platforms such as TikTok to get that data, get that information, and we are going to be proactive in Mississippi.
There is no doubt that there is opposition to what we are doing, but we need to be clear in our recognizing that China is not our friend. This is a clear and present danger to cybersecurity in our state and honestly across America. We have to be cognizant of that and we have to be willing to take sometimes difficult decisions to make sure we protect ourselves. When we think about warfare in the future, warfare is not necessarily troops on the ground or boots on the ground. There is a real battle going on for information in cybersecurity. We need to do everything we can as a state to protect America's interests, and we re willing to do that.