December 1st 2023.
On Thursday, a U.S. judge blocked Montana from implementing its very first state ban on the use of the popular short video sharing app, TikTok. Judge Donald Molloy decided that the ban was in violation of the free speech rights of its users, and issued a preliminary injunction.
TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, had filed a lawsuit against the state of Montana in May, claiming that the ban was unconstitutional. This was echoed by TikTok users in the state, who also filed a separate suit.
The Montana Attorney General's office, which had argued in favor of the ban citing privacy and security concerns, did not comment immediately. However, TikTok said in a court filing that it never shared user data with the Chinese government, and had taken measures to protect user privacy and security.
Judge Molloy found merit to several of the arguments raised by TikTok in his opinion. During an October hearing, Molloy had asked whether the state was being "paternalistic" in enforcing the ban. The law, if it had gone into effect, would have imposed fines of $10,000 on TikTok for each violation, but not on individual users.
Efforts by some in Congress to ban or restrict TikTok have stalled in recent months. Former President Donald Trump had sought to bar new downloads of the app, but his efforts were blocked by court decisions.
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