Mississippi Today
Reeves orders TikTok ban for state phones
Reeves orders TikTok ban for state phones
Gov. Tate Reeves has issued a ban on TikTok for all state-issued phones and other devices in a letter sent to Mississippi agency heads.
“It's no secret that the Chinese Communist Party is actively trying to steal U.S. intellectual property and Americans' personal information,” Reeves said in a press release. “It's a major threat to our national security and critical infrastructure, costs the U.S. economy hundreds of billions annually, and jeopardizes American jobs.”
A similar ban has been ordered on federal government issued devices.
Reeves' directive said state employees must remove, delete, and uninstall all relevant applications from state-issued devices no later than January 31. The state's technology department has been ordered to block access to TikTok from the state's network. The ban applies to all devices except those being used for “bona fide law enforcement or public safety purposes.”
“Mississippi isn't going to sit around waiting for the Chinese Communist Party to steal our state government data, and that's why I issued this directive,” Reeves said. “It will help us better protect our state's sensitive information and critical infrastructure.”
TikTok is owned by a company headquartered in Beijing. In a U.S. Senate hearing last fall, the company's chief operating officer said when questioned that no one who “makes a strategic decision at this platform” is a member of the communist party, according to Forbes. Nonetheless, nearly two dozen states have enforced bans so far, according to the Washington Post. Concerns have been raised over the application's tracking of user data and access and transfer of this data to the Chinese government.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1892
April 22, 1892
Fiery civil rights pioneer Vernon Johns was born in Darlington Heights, Virginia, in Prince Edward County. He taught himself German and other languages so well that when the dean of Oberlin College handed him a book of German scripture, Johns easily passed, won admission and became the top student at Oberlin College.
In 1948, the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, hired Johns, who mesmerized the crowd with his photographic memory of scripture. But he butted heads with the middle-class congregation when he chastised members for disliking muddy manual labor, selling cabbages, hams and watermelons on the streets near the state capitol.
He pressed civil rights issues, helping Black rape victims bring their cases to authorities, ordering a meal from a white restaurant and refusing to sit in the back of a bus. No one in the congregation followed his lead, and turmoil continued to rise between the pastor and his parishioners.
In May 1953, he resigned, returning to his family farm. His successor? A young preacher named Martin Luther King Jr.
James Earl Jones portrayed the eccentric pastor in the 1994 TV film, “Road to Freedom: The Vernon Johns Story,” and historian Taylor Branch profiled Johns in his Pulitzer-winning “Parting the Waters; America in the King Years 1954-63.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Mississippi Today
Podcast: Rep. Sam Creekmore says Legislature is making progress on public health, mental health reforms
House Public Health Chairman Sam Creekmore, R-New Albany, tells Mississippi Today's Geoff Pender and Taylor Vance he's hopeful he and other negotiators can strike a deal on Medicaid expansion to address dire issues in the unhealthiest state.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Mississippi Today
On this day in 1966
April 21, 1966
Milton Olive III became the first Black soldier awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War.
Olive had known tragedy in his life, his mother dying when he was only four hours old. He spent his early youth on Chicago's South Side and then moved to Lexington, Mississippi, where he stayed with his grandparents.
In 1964, he attended one of the Mississippi Freedom Schools, and he joined the work in Freedom Summer, registering Black voters. Concerned that he might be killed, his grandmother sent him back to Chicago, where he joined the military on his 18th birthday.
“You said I was crazy for joining up,” he wrote. “Well, I've gone you one better. I'm now an official U.S. Army Paratrooper.”
He joined the U.S. Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade and became known as “Preacher” for his quiet demeanor and his tendency to avoid cursing. On Oct. 22, 1965, helicopters dropped Olive and the 3rd Platoon of Company B into a dense jungle near Saigon. They returned fire on the Viet Cong, who retreated. As the soldiers pursued the enemy, a grenade was thrown into the middle of them. Olive grabbed the grenade and fell on it, absorbing the blast with his body.
“It was the most incredible display of selfless bravery I ever witnessed,” the platoon commander said.
Olive saved his fellow soldier's lives. Then-President Lyndon B. Johnson presented the medal to his father and stepmother, and he has since been honored with a park and a junior college named for him.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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