Judge blocks ban of TikTok in Montana

He says bill ‘oversteps’ state power

HELENA, Mont. — Montana’s first-in-the-nation law banning the video-sharing app TikTok in the state was blocked Thursday, one month before it was set to take effect, by a federal judge who called the measure unconstitutional.

The ruling delivered a temporary win for the social media company that has argued Montana’s Republican-controlled Legislature went “completely overboard” in trying to regulate the app. A final ruling will come at a later date after the legal challenge moves through the courts.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy said the ban “oversteps state power and infringes on the Constitutional right of users and businesses” while singling out the state for its fixation on purported Chinese influence.

“Despite the state’s attempt to defend [the law] as a consumer protection bill, the current record leaves little doubt that Montana’s legislature and Attorney General were more interested in targeting China’s ostensible role in TikTok than with protecting Montana consumers,” Molloy wrote Thursday in granting the preliminary injunction. “This is especially apparent in that the same legislature enacted an entirely separate law that purports to broadly protect consumers’ digital data and privacy.”

Montana lawmakers in May made the state the first in the U.S. to pass a complete ban on the app based on the argument that the Chinese government could gain access to user information from TikTok, whose parent company, ByteDance, is based in Beijing.

The ban, which was scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, was first brought before the Montana Legislature a few weeks after a Chinese spy balloon flew over the state.

It would prohibit downloads of TikTok in the state and fine any “entity” — an app store or TikTok — $10,000 per day for each time someone “is offered the ability” to access or download the app. There would not be penalties for users.

TikTok spokesperson Jamal Brown issued a statement saying the company was pleased that “the judge rejected this unconstitutional law and hundreds of thousands of Montanans can continue to express themselves, earn a living, and find community on TikTok.”

A spokeswoman for Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, also a Republican, tried to downplay the significance of the ruling in a statement.