Suspicion of political influence via app – Tiktok is suing against a planned ban in the US state of Montana

“We are challenging Montana’s unconstitutional Tiktok ban to protect our business and hundreds of thousands of Montana Tiktok users,” the company said on Twitter Monday. There are a number of precedents that Tiktok believes put it in a strong legal position.

Montana was the first US state to ban Tiktok last week. The law, signed by Governor Greg Gianforte, will ban download platforms from offering the app from January 1, 2024. Users should not be penalized if they keep and use Tiktok on their devices. In the northwestern state, however, Tiktok should no longer operate as a company. Under the new law, the company would have to pay a $10,000 fine for every day the Bytedance company made the application available for download.

USA fear political influence of their citizens

Tiktok belongs to the Chinese internet group Bytedance and is under strong political pressure in the USA. President Joe Biden’s administration banned its employees from using the app on cell phones.

An investigation has been running in the US for months that could lead to a nationwide ban on Tiktok if there is no change of ownership. The background is concerns that Chinese authorities and secret services could collect information about Americans via Tiktok and influence them politically. The company’s legal objection and lawsuits from private individuals could delay or prevent the law from coming into force.

The EU Parliament has also banned TikTok use

Not only the TikTok company has filed a lawsuit over the ban. Just a few hours after the ban was announced, users of the app in Montana also filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Missoula. According to various media reports, the five users are said to see their right to freedom of expression endangered by the planned ban. “Montana cannot ban its residents from viewing or posting on TikTok any more than the Wall Street Journal could ban because of the owner or the ideas it publishes,” the lawsuit reads.

The app is also controversial in Europe. Although Bytedance has denied the accusation of passing on user data to the Chinese government, the EU Parliament and the EU Commission also banned their employees from using TikTok at the beginning of the year due to cyber security concerns.

“Protecting the People of Montana from the Chinese Communist Party”

Critics of the state’s actions say it exceeds its authority to enact such a ban on national security or foreign policy grounds. Montana should not ban an entire platform just because the state perceives some of the statements made there, which are protected by freedom of expression, as dangerous.

Montana’s Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte said the ban was “to protect the personal and private information of the people of Montana from the Chinese Communist Party.”