Montana governor seeking more than Tiktok ban

Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte is asking lawmakers to expand the state’s proposed Tiktok ban to more social media companies that provide certain data to foreign adversaries.

This month, state lawmakers passed a bill that would make Montana the first state in the U.S. with a total ban on Tiktok. That would go much further than similar bans in other states and the federal government that bar its use on government-issued devices.

Similar to many national lawmakers and government officials, Montana proponents claim the Chinese government could harvest U.S. user data from Tiktok and use it to push pro-beijing misinformation.

Tiktok, owned by Chinese tech giant Byte dance, has said it hasn’t been asked to hand over data, and opposes the legislation.

Under the recently passed bill, downloading Tiktok would be illegal in Montana. And any “entity” — an app store or Tiktok — would be fined $10,000 a day for each time someone accesses Tiktok, “is offered the ability” to access the platform or downloads the app.

Enforcement will be challenging. Tech experts say nothing is incentivizing the companies that would be liable for violation to comply, and enforcement measures could be bypassed using a virtual private network.

The legislation probably will face legal hurdles on First Amendment grounds as well as “bills of attainder” laws preventing the government from imposing a punishment on a specific entity without a trial.

Kaitlin Price, the governor’s press secretary, said the amendment “seeks to improve the bill by broadening Montanans’ privacy protections beyond just Tiktok and against all foreign adversaries, while also addressing the bill’s technical and legal concerns.”

Tiktok did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but a representative for Netchoice, a trade group whose members include Google and Tiktok, said the bill is still misguided.