Table of Contents
On Wednesday Montana’s governor, Greg Gianforte signed the country’s first bill that outright bans the Chinese App TikTok from the U.S. state, effective January 1, 2024. The controversial move will pave the way for a legal fight determining the fate of a nationwide prohibition of TikTok.
TikTok is a fully-owned subsidiary of ByteDance Ltd., a Chinese technology firm based in Beijing and registered in the Cayman Islands. The geographical data suggests that 43% of new users of TikTok are from India and over 100 million active users were reported in the US and 23 million in the UK as of the first quarter of 2022.
TikTok is just one app tied to foreign adversaries. Today I directed the state’s Chief Information Officer to ban any application that provides personal information or data to foreign adversaries from the state network. pic.twitter.com/92Im6D9Jgx
— Governor Greg Gianforte (@GovGianforte) May 17, 2023
Considering TikTok’s stronghold in the US and UK markets, with average daily user spending 1 hour and 25 minutes on the app and opening it 17 times a day, it is natural for the United States lawmakers to see short-video app TikTok as a threat. US authorities have grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew about their data security concerns and warned them about harmful content.
Why does the US see Chinese-owned TikTok as a security threat?
In March 2023, TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew defended ByteDance’s relationship with China at a bipartisan congressional hearing, where the lawmakers also emphasized the social network’s impact on the mental health of young users in America.
The Republicans and Democratic representatives left no stone unturned, aggressively questioning Chew on topics like TikTok’s content moderation practices, data security plans, and allegations of spying on journalists in the past.
US Congress grills TikTok CEO, pushes conspiracy theories about the app being used for Chinese Communist spying.
— Caleb T. Maupin (@RealCalebMaupin) March 24, 2023
Watch my report! pic.twitter.com/nJx5sx2pKx
The US government’s major concerns were that the social network could be forced by Chinese authorities to hand over American users’ data, exposing sensitive information and posing a threat to national security.
TikTok’s CEO has extensively denied all the accusations about sharing the data with the Chinese government and had come clean in the past with security plans and strategies to protect the user data from any external forces.
Montana Can Face Legal Challenges
Opponents believe that the move was a result of government overreach and excess control imposed on residents. They believe that the law tramples on free speech rights under the disguise of national security & lays the groundwork for excessive government control over the internet.
To selectively censor entire social media apps based on their country of origin is a clear violation of constitutional rights from the authorities in charge. Arguing that the residents can easily circumvent the ban using a VPN (Virtual Private Network), preventing others from observing their web browsing.
Keegan Medrano, policy director for the ACLU of Montana, said the legislature “trampled on the free speech of hundreds of thousands of Montanans who use the app to express themselves, gather information, and run their small business in the name of anti-Chinese sentiment”.
Calling the bill unconstitutional Carl Szabo, the vice president and general counsel of NetChoice said, ” “This is a clear violation of the constitution, which prohibits the government from blocking Americans from accessing constitutionally-protected speech online via websites or apps.”
Fines Imposed by the Bill
Montana’s new law, which is effective from 1 January 2024, if not fought against by the opponents would prohibit downloads of TikTok in the state and would fine any entity that allows users to download the app for $10,000 per day for each initial download and $10,000 for every day the violation continues.
The penalties would not apply to users but to the app store or TikTok whoever offers the ability to access the platform. The social networking platform after its several attempts to defend the allegations in the past, still has a long way to go.
TikTok said in a statement that the Montana bill “infringes on the first amendment rights of the people of Montana by unlawfully banning TikTok”, and that the company intends to “defend the rights of our users inside and outside of Montana”.
Stay updated on all of the latest news by subscribing to the ITP Live newsletter below or by clicking the push notifications.