Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an order banning the contested synthetic intelligence app DeepSeek and the favored TikTok various RedNote from government-issued gadgets, changing into the primary state to dam the Chinese language apps.
The governor’s difficulty additionally prohibited Lemon8, one other social media app owned by TikTok’s Chinese language mum or dad firm Bytedance, which many turned to on the eve of TikTok’s short-term shutdown in america.
“Texas won’t enable the Chinese language Communist Get together to infiltrate our state’s crucial infrastructure via data-harvesting AI and social media apps. Texas will proceed to guard and defend our state from hostile international actors,” Abbott stated in an announcement.
The rising AI platform DeepSeek took the market by storm after it proved to outperform the US’s OpenAI at a a lot decrease price.
Final week, the app induced tech shares to dip by $1 trillion, creating panic on Wall Avenue.
The chatbot has raised safety issues not dissimilar to people who led to TikTok’s ban. The app, which has been downloaded over 2 million occasions since its debut on Jan. 15, reportedly collects and shops US consumer information in China.
All corporations based mostly in China are required by regulation to share any information with the Chinese language Communist Get together authorities upon request — probably placing American consumer information in palms unfriendly to the US.
Others have already began blocking the AI chatbot as a result of safety issues, together with the US Navy.
RedNote, or Xiaohongshu, was the lifeboat for TikTok’s sinking Titanic because the ban loomed in early January. It’s a preferred social media app in China and different elements of East Asia, together with Malaysia and Taiwan.
TikTok has already been banned on authorities gadgets since former President Joe Biden signed an act prohibiting it in Dec. 2022. The app’s future remains to be shaky following President Trump’s eleventh-hour intervention the day earlier than his inauguration granting ByteDance extra time to promote the app.
The favored app was restricted in america for mere hours on Jan. 18, randomly shutting down round 10:30 p.m. regardless of many customers believing they’d till midnight. It was up once more in a bit over 12 hours following an evening of widespread confusion.
Presently, Microsoft is believed to be a frontrunner for TikTok’s buy.
With Publish wires
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