The governor of Montana signed into law Wednesday, May 17, the law that bans TikTok in this US state, marking the beginning of a likely legal battle as far as Washington, where Congress plans to ban the popular application throughout the country. "To protect users' personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party, I have banned TikTok in Montana," tweeted Greg Gianforte, the Republican governor of the northwestern state, which has a population of just over a million.
TikTok is owned by China's ByteDance, and many U.S. lawmakers believe the short, entertaining video platform, frequented by 150 million Americans, allows Beijing to spy on and manipulate users. The app has always denied it. The Montana legislature had adopted in mid-April a text that orders mobile application stores (Apple and Google) to no longer distribute TikTok from January 1, 2024. Affected companies risk fines of $10,000 per day for each violation, but users won't be worried.
This law "violates the rights of Montana citizens" in terms of freedom of expression, responded a spokeswoman for TikTok Wednesday, referring to the First Amendment of the US Constitution. "The constitutionality of this text will be decided in the courts. We will continue to fight for TikTok users and creators in Montana," she said before the vote.
" READ ALSO How TikTok, accused of being the spy of Beijing, bursts onto the geopolitical scene
In addition to the issue of data and misinformation, elected officials blame TikTok for harmful effects on the health of the youngest (addiction, depression). Some Democratic representatives have retorted that other social networks, such as Instagram, deserve to be regulated on all these subjects.
The powerful civil rights group ACLU has also accused the state of censorship. "With this ban, Governor Gianforte and the Montana legislature are trampling on the freedom of expression of hundreds of thousands of Montana residents who use this app to express themselves, find information and promote their small businesses, in the name of anti-Chinese sentiment," Keegan Medrano, an official with the local branch of the ACLU, said Wednesday. quoted in a press release.
The law would be struck down if TikTok were to be acquired by a U.S. company (or a country that is not an enemy of the U.S.). The White House has encouraged TikTok to look for this type of solution if it wants to be able to stay in the country. Joe Biden's administration is discussing with Congress several bills to ban the application, while the decrees already taken by his predecessor Donald Trump in this direction had failed.