A U.S. judge on Thursday night blocked Montana’s first-of-its-kind state ban on the use of the short video-sharing app TikTok, which was set to take effect on Jan. 1, saying it violated free speech rights. of the users.
District Judge Donald Molloy issued a preliminary injunction blocking the ban on the Chinese-owned app, saying the state ban “oversteps state power and infringes on users’ constitutional rights.”
TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, had no immediate comment Thursday. The company sued Montana in May, seeking to block the state’s ban on several grounds, arguing that it violates the company’s and users’ First Amendment free speech rights. TikTok users in Montana also sued to block the ban.
The state attorney general’s office, which defended the ban passed by the legislature citing concerns about Montana users’ personal data and possible Chinese spying, had no immediate comment.
TikTok said in a court filing that it “has not and would not share U.S. user data with the Chinese government, and has taken substantial steps to protect the privacy and security of TikTok users.”
Molloy, who was appointed to the position by Democratic President Bill Clinton, found merit in numerous arguments raised by TikTok in his opinion.
During a hearing in October, Molloy questioned why no other state had followed Montana in banning TikTok and asked whether the state was being “paternalistic” by arguing that the ban was necessary to protect TikTok users’ data.
Montana could have imposed fines of $10,000 for each violation committed by TikTok in the state, but the law did not impose penalties on individual TikTok users.
TikTok has faced efforts by some in Congress to ban the app or give the Biden administration new powers to impose restrictions or ban it, but those efforts have stalled in recent months.
In 2020, former President Donald Trump attempted to ban new TikTok downloads, but a series of court decisions prevented the effective ban from taking effect.
