Image Source : China Visu

 BEIJING, April 7 (TMTPOST) —— Public universities across the state of Florida in the U.S. have banned accessing popular social media apps Tiktok, WeChat, and QQ through campus Wi-Fi networks or on university-owned devices in order to comply with an emergency regulation adopted by the State University System (SUS) Board of Directors on March 29.  

The new policy affected Florida's public universities—including the University of Florida, Florida State University, Florida International University, Florida Atlantic University, and the others that make up the 12-member SUS.

In addition to apps developed by Chinese companies such as TikTok, Russian social media app VKonatke，antivirus app Kaspersky and related apps were also prohibited. 

The SUS has established a technology review mechanism to review and update security services annually to check for information technology threats, according to regulations updated last Wednesday. Among them, state universities must ban entities on the SUS Prohibited Technologies List approved by the Florida government. SUS determined that TikTok, WeChat, QQ, VKonatke, and Kaspersky should be included in the blacklist. 

There had been signs of a ban. Florida State University sent a university-wide email, strongly advising faculty and students to stop using TikTok and uninstall the app in January, citing data security concerns. Alan Levine, a member of the committee that oversees SUS, has been pushing for a ban since January. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is also promoting a bill to ban TikTok in the state legislature. As a traditional swing state, Florida has become more conservative in recent years.

In at least 32 of the 50 U.S. states, state governments have ordered a ban on TikTok on government-owned devices, according to local media. At the federal level, the White House asked the federal government agencies to uninstall TikTok on February 27 at the behest of Congress. Congress added the "No TikTok on Government Devices Act" to a budget bill in December 2022, requiring that TikTok be removed from the IT of U.S. federal government agencies. In addition, any apps or services developed or provided by ByteDance or ByteDance subsidiaries were also blocked.

On March 7, the U.S. Senate unveiled a bill that would give the secretary of commerce new authorities to investigate and deal with technology products from China and other countries, including social media apps if they pose an unacceptable threat to U.S. national security. The bill aims at preventing the emergence of security threats to information and communications technology (ICT). The commerce secretary would make recommendations to the U.S. president, who has the power to take products off shelves or companies to spin off their businesses. 

TikTok, a short-form video-sharing app that enables users to record and edit content, is developed and run by the company ByteDance headquartered in Beijing, China. Concerns that China could ask ByteDance to hand over the data it collects about its users has led to the push for its ban in the U.S.