Nizich Comments on Potential TikTok Ban

The implications and consequences for colleges and universities of a possible ban on TikTok is explored in University Business. Beyond suggesting possible enrollment marketing challenges, the article notes that institutions must also protect against compromising their personal data and digital footprint, given the platform’s owner. Chinese national security laws compelling organizations to assist with intelligence gathering could force ByteDance to overturn its data, which includes intimate and detailed user posts from students and even early-stage campus research discoveries, says ETIC Director Michael Nizich, Ph.D.  “Because the company is Chinese-owned, the long-time, flagrant and deliberate theft of intellectual property by China in recent years puts the onus of securing those servers on China,” he says. “It leaves a big question mark as to why China would properly secure TikTok servers and data while it has every intention of using it for its own purposes.”