Montana lawmakers gave final passage Friday to a bill banning the social media app TikTok from operating within the state, a move that’s sure to face legal challenges but in addition function a testing ground for the TikTok-free America many national lawmakers have envisioned.
The measure now goes to Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte for his consideration.
The state House voted 54-43 to pass the bill, which fits further than prohibitions in place in nearly half the states and the US federal government that prohibit TikTok on government devices. Montana already bans the app on state-owned devices.
TikTok spokesprson Brooke Oberwetter said in an announcement that “We’ll proceed to fight for TikTok users and creators in Montana whose livelihoods and First Amendment rights are threatened by this egregious government overreach.”
The bill’s supporters “have admitted that they don’t have any feasible plan for operationalizing this try and censor American voices and that the bill’s constitutionality can be decided by the courts,” Oberwetter said.
TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese tech company ByteDance, has been under intense scrutiny over concerns it could hand over user data to the Chinese government or push pro-Beijing propaganda and misinformation on the platform.
Leaders on the FBI, CIA and various lawmakers of each parties have raised those concerns but haven’t presented any evidence that it has happened.
Supporters of a ban point to 2 Chinese laws that compel firms within the country to cooperate with the federal government on state intelligence work.
TikTok has said its servers containing information on US users are in Texas.
