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Lawmakers in Montana on Friday passed a bill banning TikTok over alleged ties to the Chinese government.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
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Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Lawmakers in Montana on Friday passed a bill banning TikTok over alleged ties to the Chinese government.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Montana has become the first state to approve a bill banning TikTok, as the Chinese government may request data from Americans from the hugely popular video streaming app.
The Republican-controlled Montana House of Representatives sent the bill to Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte on Friday so he could sign it.
The measure would make downloading TikTok illegal in the state and impose fines of up to $10,000 per day on entities such as: Apple or Google’s app stores, or TikTok itself, make popular video streaming apps available.
If enacted, the state ban will not begin until January 2024.
Before that, TikTok is expected to challenge it in federal court, which could eventually lead to a legal battle before the U.S. Supreme Court, according to legal advocates in Montana.

TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter admits the bill’s supporters “have no viable plan” to implement the TikTok ban. said it represented the censorship of
“We will continue to fight for TikTok users and creators in Montana. Their livelihoods and First Amendment rights are threatened by this egregious government overreach.
Other critics of the bill include the ACLU, which has called the move a violation of the right to free speech, calling it an “alarming precedent for excessive government control over how Montana residents use the Internet.” will set the .
But proponents highlight China’s Intelligence Law of 2017, which requires private companies to hand over data about their customers to the government if Beijing requests it. This is despite the fact that I will never comply with such a request.
However, the bill states that the ban will lose effect if TikTok is sold to a company not located in a hostile country.

Aggressive crackdown on TikTok in Montana nationwide shutdown as the Biden administration continues to negotiate with the company about its future in the United States.
Congress has also put TikTok in its crosshairs. The bill, which has gathered bipartisan momentum, gives the Department of Commerce the ability to ban apps controlled by “foreign adversaries,” a label that could apply to TikTok.
Lawmakers in both states, including Montana, and Washington, D.C., see TikTok as a potential national security threat.
Because TikTok is owned by ByteDance, the Chinese Communist Party wants access to 150 million TikTok accounts in the US to spy on US citizens and use their personal data to launch disinformation campaigns on the app. It is feared that
Concerns have grown in recent months, but there is no publicly available evidence to suggest that Chinese authorities attempted to snoop on TikTok’s data.
Last month, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew faced tough questions from lawmakers in Washington as he tried to allay bipartisan concerns about the social media app.
Most lawmakers said Chu’s testimony, which sometimes avoided questions about China, was unconvincing and only helped further strengthen their position on TikTok.
The Trump administration has tried to shut down TikTok in the US, citing the same national security concerns. But a federal court stopped the move, citing executive overreach and lack of evidence to support the case that TikTok poses a security risk.
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