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Texas Bans DeepSeek, RedNote and Lemon8 on State-Issued Devices

Silviu STAHIE

February 03, 2025

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Texas Bans DeepSeek, RedNote and Lemon8 on State-Issued Devices

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has announced a ban preventing government employees from using DeepSeek, Xiaohongshu (RedNote), and Lemon8 on state-issued devices.

Data privacy and national security concerns have prompted several US states to ban Chinese-owned apps and AI tools on government devices already, and these moves are usually precursors more to drastic measures implemented at a federal level. 

TikTok took the same path, as the US federal government was first to implement a ban on state-issued devices, followed by a more severe ban across the country.

“Texas will not allow the Chinese Communist Party to infiltrate our state’s critical infrastructure through data-harvesting AI and social media apps,” Abbott said in a short statement, according to AP news. “Texas will continue to protect and defend our state from hostile foreign actors.”

DeepSeek, a Chinese AI chatbot, saw fast global adoption, like other AI-powered chatbots that have exploded in popularity in recent months. However, authorities from various countries have begun to question how data is handled.

For example, Italy’s data protection watchdog, Garante, has taken a stance against DeepSeek as well, citing inadequate transparency around how the company collects and processes sensitive data. The response of the Chinese company wasn’t encouraging, as they simply asserted that it does not operate within Italian jurisdiction.

The Texas ban encompasses a couple of other apps seen as showing the same kind of problematic data-gathering policies. The targeted apps are the Chinese-owned social media apps Xiaohongshu (RedNote) and Lemon8.

Both of these apps have risen to the top of the list of most-downloaded apps in the US, partly helped by a push from TikTok, which promoted them heavily in the days and weeks before the ban was enforced in the United States.

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Silviu STAHIE

Silviu is a seasoned writer who followed the technology world for almost two decades, covering topics ranging from software to hardware and everything in between.

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