Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed a bill on Wednesday banning TikTok statewide, all but ensuring a legal, political and sheer logistical battle over the use and accessibility of the popular social media platform.
In a tweet on Wednesday claimed Gianforte the new law is an attempt to “protect Montanans’ personal and private information from the Chinese Communist Party.” However, critics and security experts argue that the app’s blacklist infringes on residents’ right to free speech and would do little to actually monitor private data of individuals.
“This unconstitutional ban undermines the freedom of expression and association of Montana TikTok users and urges TikTok’s interest in distributing its users’ videos,” the digital rights organization said. Electronic Borders Foundation argued in a statement posted on Twitterwho called the new law a “flagrant violation of the First Amendment.”
[Related: Why some US lawmakers want to ban TikTok.]
According to the EVF and other interest groups, Montana’s TikTok ban won’t really protect residents from corporations and bad actors who can still scrape their private data and then monetize it. Instead, the advocates reiterated their call for lawmakers to pass comprehensive data privacy laws similar to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. Similar laws have passed in states such as California, Colorado, and Utah, but continue stuck at the federal level.
“We want to reassure Montanans that they can continue to use TikTok to express themselves, make a living and find community as we continue to work to defend the rights of our users inside and outside Montana,” said TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter. . mention on Wednesday.
Montana’s new law focuses primarily on access to TikTok through app stores from technology providers like Apple and Google, which have been ordered to block all downloads from the social media platform once the ban takes effect in early 2024. Montanans are not subject to the $10,000-a-day fine if they still access TikTok — rather, the fine is imposed on companies like Google, Apple, and TikTok’s owner, ByteDance.
[Related: The best VPNs of 2023.]
That said, there’s no clear or legal way to force Montanans to uninstall the app if it’s already downloaded on their phone. Similarly, proxy services such as VPNs could hypothetically easily circumvent the ban. If The protector noted on Thursday, the ability for Montana to actually enforce a wholesale ban on the app is seemingly impossible, except for the state to follow censorship tactics used by nations like China.
“With this ban, Governor Gianforte and the Montana legislature have trampled on the free speech of hundreds of thousands of Montana residents who use the app to express themselves, gather information, and run their small businesses in the name of anti-Chinese sentiment, Keegan Medrano, director of policy at Montana’s ACLU, said in a statement. “We will never trade our First Amendment rights for cheap political points.”
