UW bans TikTok following governor’s lead

The ban impacts thousands of students living in university housing, who are no longer able to access the app from their home wifi. Official UW TikTok pages are still posting from personal devices.

The University of Wyoming has banned the popular Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok, blocking it on the university’s wifi network and asking faculty, staff and students to remove the app from any UW-owned devices.

Students who opened their TikTok accounts on the university wifi shortly after the ban took effect Monday found a page stating there was “No internet connection” and “Tap to Retry.”

The ban also impacts students living in UW-owned dormitories, fraternity or sorority houses, and apartments, who will no longer be able to access TikTok from their homes. This could affect as many as 3,000 students whose school fees pay for the wifi in their living spaces.

On-campus, the ban can be skirted by logging out of the UW wifi and using cellular data, but students living in on-campus housing will likely have to pay more to their carrier for the increased data usage.

“In addition to removing the TikTok app from any University of Wyoming devices, we encourage you to exercise caution if you use TikTok on a personal device,” states a campus-wide email from UW IT. “TikTok and other social media apps can collect an enormous amount of personal information, and the settings may not adequately protect your privacy.”

TikTok is currently the only “application, site, or app that is blocked” on the UW network, UW Information Technology Manager Brett Williams writes in an email. Sites that display sexual content or artificial intelligence programs like ChatGPT remain accessible.

The UW ban follows from Governor Mark Gordon’s Dec. 15 executive order banning TikTok from all state devices. Gordon cited cybersecurity concerns stemming from “the app’s foreign ownership and the potential influence of foreign governments.”

“Maintaining robust cybersecurity is a shared responsibility, and Wyoming is committed to identifying threats that could impact public safety,” the governor says in a news release. “The potential for foreign governments to access information collected by TikTok is extremely troubling.”

Cybersecurity concerns stem from U.S. lawmakers who are wary of TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance. ByteDance data may be accessible to national security data audits from the Chinese government.

The federal government has already taken action on these concerns by banning TikTok from government-owned devices through a spending package provision in late 2022.

This is not the first time concerns have been raised about social media companies and their collection of data, use of data, or security of the collected data of their users.

“TikTok is just one app that we could point to and say this is a problem,” Laramie Rep. Karlee Provenza (HD-45) said. Provenza is currently sponsoring Senate Joint Resolution Nine — a bill aiming to enshrine privacy rights in the Wyoming Constitution.

Provenza said she wasn’t sure if the push to “vilify” TikTok came from ignorance about broader cybersecurity problems or simply a hatred and distrust of China specifically. Either way, she said a government ban on a social media website is not fair to campus residents.

“When you sign up to go to university, you don't give up your right to make choices with your free time,” Provenza said. “Is that fair to students? I would argue that it's probably not.”

UW Provost Kevin Carman said UW upper administration was warned of the eventual outcome of this week's TikTok ban in early January.

“There was an original confusion with the institutional technology department and the governor's office about whether this affected higher education institutions or not,” Carman said. “[The governor's office] came back later, after the school year began, and said it in fact did.”

The ban might have some unintended consequences for university public relations. Some UW student employees run official TikTok pages for groups or departments on campus.

“They were worried if they would have jobs following the TikTok ban,” said Shelbey Prusia, a website strategist for UW’s public relations office. “They still have jobs, and they're still here, still creating great content.”

UW spokesman Chad Baldwin said UW-owned accounts across the university have resumed use of the app as “university entities, including Institutional Marketing, are continuing to post on TikTok using personal devices.”

In the pursuit of their degree, UW Communication and Journalism students learn how to interact with several different forms of media — including Instagram, Facebook and other social media applications like TikTok.

But Communication and Journalism Department Head Cindy Price Schultz said banning TikTok from the UW network will not affect social media and advertising students.

“I talk about it in public relations, and I talk about it in advertising (courses),” Price Schultz said. “I think you can easily talk about TikTok and even (how it’s) incorporated into advertising and marketing, and not have any violation.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story displayed a byline for Jeff Victor. The story was in fact written by Ashton Hacke. Additionally, the subheading has been changed to reflect that those living on campus are unable to access TikTok from their “home wifi” rather than simply from their “home.” On campus, one can technically still access TikTok by turning off wifi and using cellular data instead.