The colleges are responding to executive action, but limiting access to the app may be in their best interests, said Karen North, a clinical professor of digital social media at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Kay Ivey, a Republican, banned the app from all state-government networks and devices. In Alabama, Auburn University blocked TikTok through campus networks in December, after Gov. The University of North Texas and the University of Texas at Dallas have also blocked access to TikTok on their Wi-Fi networks. “As outlined in the governor’s directive, TikTok harvests vast amounts of data from its users’ devices - including when, where, and how they conduct internet activity - and offers this trove of potentially sensitive information to the Chinese government,” wrote Jeff Neyland, the university’s adviser to the president on technology strategy, in an email. Greg Abbott, a Republican, issued a directive last month barring TikTok from state-owned devices and networks, the University of Texas at Austin announced this week that TikTok would no longer be accessible through its campus Wi-Fi. TikTok has been banned from state-owned devices in 27 states and is partly banned in four states, according to a CNN analysis. Greg Gianforte of Montana, a Republican, sent a letter on January 3 to the Montana Board of Regents asking it to block TikTok’s use on Montana University System networks. TikTok is owned by ByteDance Ltd., a Chinese technology company.

The app’s algorithm could be used to flood the United States with misinformation, Wray said, and its user data could be harvested for espionage. In taking action against TikTok, many governors have cited the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Christopher Wray, who in early December told an audience at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor that the app raised national-security concerns. In the last two months, more than two dozen states have issued such bans, prompting many public colleges to tell students they’ll have to log out of the campus Wi-Fi if they want to use the app. Public colleges and universities across the country are barring TikTok from their internet systems as a slew of states ban the popular video app from state-owned devices.

Tik tok ban