On Tuesday, March 31st, the Mayor of New York City released a TikTok video declaring, “TikTok, we’re back!” This announcement marked the revocation of the ban imposed by former Mayor Adams on this video platform, allowing city government agencies to once again use TikTok.
In August 2023, then-Mayor Adams joined other states and federal agencies in banning city government agencies from using TikTok on government devices. The reason cited was that TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, which could be influenced by the Chinese Communist government, posing risks of data leaks or cyber attacks for New York City, leading to its removal from city-owned devices.
This directive resulted in the closure of many popular city government-operated accounts on TikTok.
Now, these TikTok accounts will be allowed to reopen with some new guidelines in place to protect the cybersecurity of New York City’s networks and devices, while also enabling agencies to communicate with citizens through this popular application.
According to an email sent to city government agencies, in order to use TikTok, agencies must operate the application on government-issued dedicated devices that “must not store sensitive or restricted data, nor be used for sending or receiving emails, accessing internal systems, or conducting privileged access.”
Agencies will designate specific staff members from the media and news offices to operate TikTok accounts using the city government email (rather than personal email). An email received by city government agencies stated, “The Mamdani administration is committed to utilizing all available tools to communicate with the people of New York City.”
Mamdani has been known for using social media to disseminate information since his campaign, having organized numerous campaign activities through applications including TikTok.
On the TikTok front, policies have been continuously evolving in recent years. In 2020, former U.S. President Trump attempted to completely ban the platform in the U.S. citing its ties to the Chinese government. However, after his second term in office, he changed strategy to find ways to allow the application to continue operating in the U.S. In January 2026, TikTok reached a final agreement with the Trump administration to establish a U.S.-based company operated by American investors, including Oracle.
However, there are still dozens of states that prohibit government employees from using TikTok on their devices.