Montana would become the first state in America to completely ban TikTok beginning in 2024 after the state legislature passed a bill banning the short-form app due to security concerns raised by its ownership by China-based ByteDance on Friday. The bill now goes to Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte’s desk before it can become law, and TikTok has stated that it will fight the legislation.
TikTok would face fines of up to $10,000 per day per violation under Montana legislation, which would take effect on January 1, 2024, if it continued to operate in the state. Furthermore, the state may impose penalties on Apple and Google if they allow Montana users to download the app from their respective app stores.
The Biden administration has threatened to ban TikTok across the country unless ByteDance sells its ownership stake in the app. Similarly, if ByteDance sells TikTok, the Montana legislation would nullify the app’s restrictions.
According to the Montana legislation, “the People’s Republic of China is an adversary of the United States and Montana, and has an interest in gathering information about Montanans, Montana companies, and users’ intellectual property to engage in corporate and international espionage.”
According to the legislation, the Chinese government “exercises control and oversight over ByteDance, like other Chinese corporations, and can direct the company to share user information, including real-time physical locations of users.” Furthermore, according to the bill, “TikTok fails to remove, and may even promote, dangerous content that directs minors to engage in dangerous activities.”
According to a spokesperson for Gianforte, “The governor will carefully consider any bill that the legislature sends to his desk.” Gianforte banned TikTok from state government devices in December, and the Montana University System followed suit after the governor urged it to do so.
TikTok called the Montana bill’s passage an “attempt to censor American voices.”
“The bill’s champions have admitted that they have no feasible plan for operationalizing this attempt to censor American voices and that the bill’s constitutionality will be decided by the courts,” TikTok said in a statement. “We will continue to fight for Montana TikTok users and creators whose livelihoods and First Amendment rights are threatened by this egregious government overreach.”
Analysts said the likelihood of a U.S. ban on the app increased following CEO Shou Zi Chew’s appearance before a House hearing last March, given lawmakers’ skepticism about his answers about China’s influence over TikTok and the communist regime’s ability to track user data via the app, as well as TikTok’s efforts to combat misinformation and harmful content. China’s commerce ministry has stated that it is “firmly opposed” to a forced sale of TikTok and that any such transaction would require approval from the Chinese government.
According to a Pew Research Center poll released last month, 50% of American adults support a US government ban on TikTok, which claims to have more than 150 million monthly users in the US. The survey of American adults, conducted between March 20 and 26, discovered that only 19% of those who use TikTok support a ban.
Donald Trump attempted to enact a TikTok ban in the final months of his presidency, citing perceived national security threats posed by Chinese ownership. Federal judges ruled that Trump overstepped his authority by ordering a ban on TikTok, dismissing the administration’s hypothetical concerns about TikTok’s security risks.