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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has banned social media and AI apps affiliated with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on government-issued devices.
TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has been banned on government devices in Texas since 2022 and 30+ states have done the same. But the Republican governor is expanding that blockade to six more apps: the AI model DeepSeek, social media apps Lemon8 and RedNote, as well as the stock-trading apps Moomoo, Tiger Brokers, and Webull.
“Texas will not allow the Chinese Communist Party to infiltrate our state’s critical infrastructure through data-harvesting AI and social media apps,” Gov. Abbott said.
In a proclamation sent to Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson on Friday, Abbott said the apps “pose a security risk to the state of Texas.”
The news of the ban comes as many of these Chinese-made apps and tools have hugely spiked in popularity. DeepSeek exploded in popularity this week, with visits to the AI model's website spiking from just 300,000 per day to 6 million. President Donald Trump called DeepSeek’s recent spike in popularity a “wake-up call" for American companies at an annual policy retreat earlier this week.
RedNote, a short-form video-focused social network similar to TikTok, also experienced a huge surge in popularity in the run-up to the short-lived TikTok blackout on Jan. 19. However, its popularity dropped by around 50% in a single day after TikTok returned.
Trump recently signed an executive order that gives TikTok 75 days to find a suitable buyer that divests itself from Chinese owners. Reports suggest Oracle and Microsoft might be interested.