The prohibition signed into law by Governor Greg Gianforte will serve as a legal test for a national ban of the Chinese-owned platform, something that lawmakers in Washington are increasingly calling for.
"TikTok may not operate within the territorial jurisdiction of Montana," said a copy of the freshly-minted law at the state website.
The ban makes it a violation each time "a user accesses TikTok, is offered the ability to access TikTok, or is offered the ability to download TikTok."
Each violation is punishable by a $10,000 fine every day it takes place.
Under the law, Apple and Google will have to remove TikTok from their app stores and companies will face possible daily fines.
The move almost certainly will be challenged by lawsuits.
State political leaders have "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," said ACLU Montana policy director Keegan Medrano.
The ban will take effect in 2024, but be voided if TikTok is acquired by a company incorporated in a country not designated by the United States as a foreign adversary, the law read.
"Governor Gianforte has signed a bill that infringes on the First Amendment rights of the people of Montana by unlawfully banning TikTok," a spokeswoman for the company told AFP.
"We want to reassure Montanans that they can continue using TikTok to express themselves, earn a living, and find community as we continue working to defend the rights of our users inside and outside of Montana."
TikTok has gone on record saying that the ban's constitutionality will ultimately be decided by the courts.
The law is the latest skirmish in duels between TikTok and many western governments, with the app already banned on government devices in the United States, Canada and several countries in Europe.
The app is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance and is accused by a wide swathe of US politicians of being under the tutelage of the Chinese government and a tool of espionage by Beijing, something the company furiously denies.
Gianforte himself said on Twitter that he signed the ban in order to "protect Montanans' personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party."
Despite its immense popularity, TikTok faces an ultimatum by the White House that it split from its Chinese owners or stop operating in America.
Montana's clampdown on TikTok comes as the app faces proposals of national legislation -- including one bill that could give the White House massive new powers to oversee Chinese tech companies.
TikTok parent to 'vigorously' fight former US exec allegations
San Francisco (AFP) May 15, 2023 -
ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, on Monday said it would fight allegations that it fired an executive for sounding the alarm over what he called the company's "culture of lawlessness."
Yintao Yu has sued ByteDance in a San Francisco court as political pressure has been growing in the US to ban TikTok. Critics say the popular platform allows Beijing to covertly collect users' data and influence their opinions -- something the company denies.
"We plan to vigorously oppose what we believe are baseless claims and allegations in this complaint," a ByteDance spokesperson said in an email to AFP.
In his suit, which was filed this month, Yu says that he discovered shortly after being hired in 2017 that ByteDance "was stealing" videos published on rival sites like Instagram and Snapchat and presenting them as its own.
Yu, who was ByteDance's US head of engineering, says he notified company leaders about the problem, but the "intellectual property infringement continued unabated."
He was fired in November 2018.
ByteDance said Yu worked for ByteDance Inc. for less than a year and that during his time at the company he "worked on an app called Flipagram, which was discontinued years ago for business reasons".
"ByteDance is committed to respecting the intellectual property of other companies, and we acquire data in accordance with industry practices and our global policy," the company added.
On Friday, Yu submitted an amendment to his original complaint -- which was filed May 1 -- accusing ByteDance of serving "as a useful propaganda tool for the Chinese Communist Party."
The issue of access to personal data on American users has aroused growing concern among US authorities. In response, the company says it stores that data only on US-based servers.
At a congressional hearing in Washington in late March, TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew assured largely hostile US legislators that Beijing had no access to the data.
Related Links
Cyberwar - Internet Security News - Systems and Policy Issues
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
