A reversal with guardrails

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is undoing an Eric Adams-era ban that kept TikTok off government-owned devices, allowing local agencies to post on the app again as long as they follow a new set of security rules.

The shift comes from an email sent to agencies and obtained by WIRED. In it, the Mamdani administration says it wants to keep using the platforms where New Yorkers actually get their information, which apparently now includes a lot of scrolling between emergency alerts and recipe videos.

"The Mamdani administration is committed to using every tool in our toolbox to communicate with New Yorkers," the email says. "At a moment when people are turning to city government for information about free services, emergency situations, upcoming events, and more, we want to open up new avenues of communication with the public and help deliver the information New Yorkers need."

The new policy gives city agencies permission to revive TikTok accounts, but only under restrictions meant to keep city networks out of trouble.

What changes for city agencies

To use TikTok, agencies must rely on separate government-issued devices dedicated to the app. Those devices "cannot contain sensitive or restricted data, and they cannot be used for email, internal systems, or privileged access," according to the email.

The city will also require designated staff from media and press offices to run the accounts. Those staffers will use city government email addresses, not personal accounts.

That is the practical part. The less practical part is that city government is now trying to have it both ways: be everywhere online and still sleep at night.

How the city got here

In August 2023, then-Mayor Adams barred TikTok from government devices, joining a broader wave of state and federal restrictions that treated the app as a serious security risk.

At the time, Adams spokesperson Jonah Allon said the city’s Cyber Command office had determined that TikTok, then owned by the China-based company ByteDance, "posed a security threat to the city’s technical networks and directed its removal from city-owned devices."

The ban had an immediate effect on city-run accounts. Popular TikTok presences from agencies including the NYC Departments of Sanitation and Parks and Recreation went dark. As of Tuesday morning, their bios still said, "This account was operated by NYC until August 2023. It’s no longer monitored."

Mamdani’s social media playbook

Mamdani’s reversal is not especially surprising given how much his own rise depended on social media. He won election in November with a campaign that leaned heavily on online outreach, especially TikTok, where he used short-form videos to recruit volunteers and push his policy agenda.

Since taking office, he has kept using the same approach for city messaging. In January, ahead of dangerous winter weather, Mamdani posted a video on the official @nycmayor Instagram account urging New Yorkers to sign up for NotifyNYC, the city’s free emergency communications program. According to his office, the campaign added more than 32,000 subscribers in the four days after the video went up.

For comparison, New York City Emergency Management spent $240,000 on advertising for NotifyNYC last year and gained about 48,000 new subscribers.

Mamdani also put out several videos encouraging residents to join a Department of Sanitation snow-shoveling program. That effort brought in around 5,000 people, tripling the number already enrolled.

TikTok is not standing still either

The timing matters here. In January 2026, TikTok finalized a deal with the Trump administration to create a new U.S.-based version of the company run by American investors, including Oracle. That arrangement helped avert a nationwide ban.

So the app that once got treated like a technical hazard is now back in the city’s communication toolbox, provided it stays on the right device and away from the wrong data. Government, as ever, is at its most flexible when the platform changes faster than the policy memo.