- Governor Bill Lee signed Senate Bill 834/House Bill 1445 into law on April 13, 2023. This state law prohibits Tennessee public higher education institutions from allowing access to social media platforms owned operated or hosted by a company based in China on the state-funded institutional network (hard-wired or wireless network connections) .
- Students, staff, faculty, and the general public are blocked from accessing TikTok and a slate of other Chinese apps, like WeChat and Sina Weibo, Tencent QQ, Tencent Video, Xiao HongShu, Douban, Zhihu, Meituan and Toutiao while on campus networks. The state legislation does not provide an exhaustive list of applications that are blocked from use on the university network (UT Open and Eduroam. The names above are examples of known applications that are Chinese-owned and operated.
- The law does not prevent anyone from accessing TikTok or other Chinese apps on a personal internet connection or a third-party network. You can continue to have a TikTok and other Chinese social media accounts.
- Campus entities will still be able to have institutional TikTok accounts; however, they will not be able to access them through the UT network.
- TikTok accounts will need to use a separate, non-state network or have an outside entity manage the content.
- If you try to access one of the blocked sites while on the university network, the application or the URL will not resolve, and you will not be able to connect.
Please use this link to review the law and its mandates.
Click on this link to view UT’s Q&A regarding the law.