Skift Take
As top government officials aggressively push to expel TikTok from the U.S., expect state tourism offices to put the brakes on their growing flow of marketing dollars into the short-form video platform.
Multiple state tourism agencies ended their growing participation on the short-form video sharing platform TikTok to comply with their state executive orders. As they exit, they plan to move the resources allocated for TikTok into their other social media channels.
South Dakota Governor Krisiti Noem issued an executive order on November 30 stating all state employees and agencies may not use TikTok on government devices. Within the first two weeks of December, the governors of Texas, South Carolina, Maryland, Oklahoma, Utah, Alabama, Iowa, Idaho and Georgia issued similar orders, each referencing TikTok's ownership by Chinese company Bytedance, making it subject to the Chinese government’s interests.
It’s also not just governor bans. Arkansas state agencies received a directive from their information system division last week to not use TikTok on state devices, according to Jeff LeMaster, chief communications officer of Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism. There’s a bill under discussion in the Arkansas state legislature to ban the app on state agency devices.
A large and growing segment of U.S. tourism agencies are now not allowed to use a social media platform that hosts 750 million users worldwide. TikTok is popular