In first for states, Texas bans DeepSeek, RedNote apps from government-issued devices

Following worries about data privacy and national security caused by the proliferation of Chinese-owned apps, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday issued an order banning the apps DeepSeek and RedNote from state government-issued devices.

The ban that includes artificial intelligence app DeepSeek and social media platform RedNote also extends to other apps affiliated with the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party, such as Webull, Tiger Brokers, Moomoo and Lemon8, a social media app owned by TikTok parent company Bytedance.

Abbott’s proclamation makes Texas the first state to explicitly block these apps, which mirrors closely the flurry of actions taken by states in 2022 and 2023 to ban TikTok and other apps linked to “evil foreign governments,” as one 2023 ban led by former South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem declared.

DeepSeek’s AI-powered chatbot, which launched globally on Jan. 20, created waves after rapidly gaining popularity and upending markets by proving it can compete with industry leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic, but at a fraction of the cost.

A nationwide ban on TikTok, first proposed by Trump in 2020 and passed by Congress last year under former President Joe Biden, directed ByteDance to divest from the platform. In response, millions of U.S. users flocked to RedNote, which offers e-commerce and similar social media functions. On Jan. 20, one day after TikTok’s service was to be suspended, Trump ordered a 75-day pause on the ban’s enforcement.

“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 statement Friday. “To achieve that mission, I ordered Texas state agencies to ban Chinese government-based AI and social media apps from all state-issued devices. State agencies and employees responsible for handling critical infrastructure, intellectual property, and personal information must be protected from malicious espionage operations by the Chinese Communist Party. Texas will continue to protect and defend our state from hostile foreign actors.”

Abbott’s order draws on the TikTok ban he issued in 2022, which directed all state agencies to ban the download or use of the app on government-issued devices. That ban was challenged in court, with a First Amendment advocacy group filing a complaint citing the ban’s disruption to research and education across public universities — but in December 2023, a Texas federal district court upheld the ban.