1/13/2022
Timothy Chapman
On Dec. 20, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott established a statewide ban on the usage of TikTok on all government state issued devices due to concerns about cyber security and information sharing on a platform that’s owned by a country outside the United States of America.
As a state public university, UTRGV must comply with the order by removing all official accounts from the platform.
Vice President for University Marketing and Communications Patrick Gonzales said TikTok was first used in UTRGV because of the convenience and huge popularity it has, however he doesn’t think this ban will negatively affect student engagement.
“To actually gauge how impactful it is, what effect it had on our students, you know, we never did that. So that said, having to stop it I don’t think will hurt at University at all,” Gonzales said.
Although the university TikTok accounts will no longer be active, Gonzales said UTRGV will not lose their digital footprint on the app because of students making videos themselves.
“Those are just the accounts that belong to the university, our students are still gonna use TikTok, our students are still going to promote UTRGV in some way and so we won’t lose that impact,” Gonzales said.
UTRGV street team member/ content creator Luisa Avila said she saw the positive impact TikTok had on the multiple UTRGV accounts she helped manage.
“We did get a lot of comments that were like, ‘oh I’m gonna be going there [UTRGV] next year,’ or ‘I’m going to be a future vaquero,’ and things like that, so we did get that connection with a bigger audience,” Avila said.
She said there are still other social media accounts that UTRGV can continue to use to stay engaged with, Instagram now being the most popular for making videos.
“We’ll still keep the same type of content in mind. We do want to bring some of the TikTok’s we have already made into reels just to not lose that content, and to still get a new audience,” said Avila. “It is unfortunate that we do not have access to TikTok anymore, but we still have a lot of audience in our Instagram accounts,” Avila said.
As per the Information Security Office & The Office of the CIO, if you have any questions or concerns about this change, please do not hesitate to contact our IT Support Center for assistance.
UTRGV Public Announcement about the TikTok policy change.
“In addition, any departments that are using TikTok accounts for school, work, or any other official UTRGV business purposes should contact University Marketing and Communications at umc@utrgv.edu to discuss necessary steps to comply with the Governor’s order.
We understand that this may be an inconvenience for some of our community members who use TikTok for personal or professional purposes.
Over the coming days and weeks several steps will be taken to ensure that we comply with this order. As these activities occur, we will continue to provide updates and assistance to our campus community to ensure a smooth transition to these requirements.”[1]
only on website and make sure you put who sent this out. Im not sure.
