TikTok will be banned from North Dakota university system devices & networks

The decision was voted on by North Dakota's Board of Higher Education

BISMARCK, N.D. (KVRR/KFGO) — North Dakota’s Board of Higher Education has voted to block the popular social media platform TikTok from all State University System devices and networks effective July 1st .

The Board would consider allowing TikTok to be used for marketing purposes, pending further research by vice chancellor of information technology Darin King.

Lawmakers in Washington have warned about security breaches and possible Chinese surveillance involving TikTok. King believes there are ways to craft additional security for marketing.

“The federal government blocks (TikTok). They don’t tell us why they block it, so we don’t understand if it has been weaponized and if they have examples or not. We are completely in the dark on that,” King said.

“But from the standpoint of where it ranks, there’s a lot of other things that we would consider a higher risk than TikTok at this time,” King added.

UND’s V-P for marketing Melony Linder said the platform has helped the University target potential students. Linder said if TikTok was banned on University networks, it is the assumption that students would still continue to use the app at home or they would just simply switch to their cellular data carrier to use the app on their device.

UND has more than 92,800 followers on TikTok.