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A U.S. judge on Monday upheld Texas' ban on state employees', including public university employees, using Chinese-owned short video app TikTok on state-owned devices or networks.

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed suit in July arguing that Texas’ state government TikTok ban "is preventing or seriously impeding faculty from pursuing research that relates to TikTok."

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman rejected the suit, saying the Texas restriction was motivated by data protection concerns and calling "a reasonable restriction on access to TikTok in light of Texas’s concerns."

"Public university faculty - and all public employees - are free to use TikTok on their personal devices (as long as such devices are not used to access state networks)," he wrote.