Would you rather know if it was up to the government or not know?
Because the case with TikTok is that we do not know what the Chinese government is going to do with whatever it collects from the app. Or even if they do. Or anything really.
Now, while I think banning TikTok's traffic on the campus network is more of a stunt than anything worthwhile. I do see the argument from banning TikTok and just about any other non-essential app from government issued mobile hardware.
That's an area where you'd want to have as little possible surface area exposed as you can.
This is about banning access to TikTok for client devices of a campus network. It has nothing to do with banning the TikTok app on government-issued phones.
If you don't like TikTok or are concerned about the Chinese government collecting information on you, those are excellent reasons for you not to use TikTok. But what do your preferences have to do with the freedom of other people?
You are explaining why UT-Austin should have the power of say in what traffic they allow on their network, which I agree with they should have. It can be used for many legitimate things, including blocking malicious endpoints associated with DDoS, blocking websites with known malware, stuff that very negatively affects the campus network infra, etc.
However, you aren't explaining why UT-Austin should get to decide which apps (that don't affect network operations or campus device security) people can use on their personal devices on UT-Austin network.
Sure, it technically falls under the very large umbrella of "allowing traffic". No one is disputing that they de-facto have that power. I believe the original question was more along the lines of "how can they reasonably justify doing so without jumping to non-sequeters and bs excuses".
If you are saying they should have to explain or justify why they block traffic to TikTok's services, you are saying they don't have "the power of say". Because you are saying that power is conditional on you accepting their explanation.
I agree that they have the power of say, and it isn't conditional on me (or anyone else) accepting their explanation.
I was just bringing up examples of how I believed those powers should be reasonably used and the kinds of situations they were intended for (in my opinion). And the current situation is not how I believe they should be used, but they technically have the power to do it.
This is not how the Internet was supposed to work.