A federal judge on Thursday blocked Montana’s trailblazing state ban of TikTok from taking effect next year, preventing what would have been the United States’ first such prohibition of the video-sharing platform.
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy issued a preliminary injunction to stop the ban, saying it “oversteps state power” and “violates the Constitution in more ways than one.”
TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, sued Montana in May in an effort to stop the ban from going into force. The company argued that the ban would have violated First Amendment rights of both users and the company itself. Montana’s TikTok users also filed suit to prevent the ban, which had been passed by the state legislature, citing fears about Chinese spying and data protection concerns.
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A TikTok spokesperson said they were pleased the “unconstitutional law” was blocked, adding that “hundreds of thousands of Montanans can continue to express themselves, earn a living, and find community on TikTok.”
A spokesperson in the office of Montana state Attorney General Austin Knudsen told Reuters that the ruling was only preliminary and “the analysis could change as the case proceeds.” They added that the office is now considering next steps and is looking “forward to presenting the complete legal argument to defend the law that protects Montanans from the Chinese Communist Party obtaining and using their data.”
TikTok insisted in earlier court filings that it “has not shared, and would not share, U.S. user data with the Chinese government, and has taken substantial measures to protect the privacy and security of TikTok users.”
Several states and the federal government have banned TikTok on government-owned devices, but Montana is the only state that has attempted to entirely prohibit use of the platform.
