Ward 8 Cleveland City Councilman Mike Polensek last week introduced a resolution that would encourage City Hall to ban TikTok from all city-issued devices.
“Clearly TikTok is a tool of the Chinese Communist government. They’re trolling personal information, they’re providing misinformation,” Polensek told Cleveland 19 News. “This is a tool of oppression. This is a tool of division.”
The proposed resolution follows similar moves by states including Ohio, which have banned or attempted to ban the app on state-owned devices due to data protection or national security concerns.
TikTok has told U.S. officials that it doesn’t store any American data in China and that it doesn’t give data to its parent company, Bytedance, but concerns that the Chinese government could directly access U.S. phones has led a growing number of officials — largely Republicans — to join the anti-TikTok chorus.
In Cleveland, Polensek qualifies, and seems to be tackling a problem that doesn’t exist.
City of Cleveland spokesperson Sarah Johnson told Scene that not only can employees not download apps on their city phones on their own, that the city’s IT department has to “push the app to the phones with permission from communications,” but also that only one city-owned device currently has TikTok downloaded.
One.
Johnson pointed out that it’s common for police departments to use TikTok to investigate some crimes, as just one example of how a city could benefit from access to the app.
As Bibb seeks to modernize City Hall, it could also be used to connect with residents and share information, or recruit workers, or simply be a venue for city council to do the latest TikTok dance as a group. The possibilities are endless.
Polensek didn’t respond to a request from Scene for comment, which was not surprising. “I do not have any interest in dealing with the ‘Scene’ now or in the future!” he said the last time he interacted with one of our reporters.
*Correction: The resolution was inadvertently referred to as legislation in the original version of this article.
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This article appears in Jan 25 – Feb 7, 2023.
