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An attempt by a state government in the US to completely ban access to TikTok for everyone in that state is not happening, at least for now. Today, a US district court judge issued a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of a law passed by the state of Montana back in May that would have banned access to the social networking service starting on January 1, 2024.
When the governor of Montana, Greg Gianforte, signed the law to ban TikTok in the state in May, he repeated what other politicians have said of the China-owned service. He said TikTok could be collecting personal data to be used by the Chinese government.
TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has repeatedly denied these claims, but it has not stopped the US government, along with many other countries around the world, from banning the use of TikTok by government employees on government-owned devices.
However, Montana’s law was the first attempt by a government to ban TikTok from being used by ordinary citizens. ByteDance wasted little time in filing a lawsuit against the state of Montana, claiming the law was “an extraordinary and unprecedented measure driven solely by unfounded speculation.”
Today, Reuters reports that U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy agreed with ByteDance, and issued the injunction that blocks enforcement of the law while the case awaits a full trial. In his decision, Judge Molloy stated Montana’s law, “oversteps state power and infringes on the constitutional rights of users.”
In a statement, TikTok said that the company was happy that Judge Molloy “rejected this unconstitutional law and hundreds of thousands of Montanans can continue to express themselves, earn a living, and find community on TikTok.”
In its own statement, the Montan state attorney general said, “We look forward to presenting the complete legal argument to defend the law that protects Montanans from the Chinese Communist Party obtaining and using their data.” There’s no word on when the official trial will begin.
