Montana’s ban on the app TikTok, enacted earlier this year, is now on hold. On Thursday, a US federal judge in the state temporarily blocked the broadcast of the ban, claiming it was unconstitutional and an overreach of state authority. Specifically, the court ruled that the ban likely violated the First Amendment as well as a clause that gives Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations.
Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte first signed into law the US’s toughest restriction on the social video app in May of this year, saying the law would protect Montanans’ personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party. TikTok is operated by ByteDance, a Beijing-based company, although its US user data now resides on Oracle servers in the US
Not long after, TikTok sued Montana over the new law, arguing that it violated the Constitution and that the state overreached by legislating national security issues. TikTok asked the court for an injunction against the ban while the case was heard in court. Furthermore, five TikTok creators separately sued Montana arguing that the ban violated their First Amendment rights.
After hearing arguments from both sides, the judge agreed with TikTok and blocked the ban from going live for now.
In the court’s opinion issued with the order, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy wrote that despite Montana’s framing of the law as one focused on consumer protection, there was “little doubt that the Montana Legislature and Attorney General are more interested in targeting China’s alleged role in TikTok than in protecting Montana consumers.”
In addition, the judge added that the ban “arguably violates the First Amendment” as it targets speech. Not only would TikTok suffer “irreparable harm” from the ban, but so would creators, the judge noted. “By shutting down TikTok, the Legislature has harmed the First Amendment rights of Plaintiff Users and cut off an income stream that many rely on. Thus, Plaintiffs have established the possibility of irreparable harm,” he wrote.
A similar argument about creator income streams was used to block the Trump administration’s ban on TikTok in 2020, after creators filed a lawsuit claiming they would lose access to their followers and income.
If Montana’s TikTok ban had gone into effect on January 1, 2024, it would have fined either TikTok or the app stores $10,000 each time a user accessed TikTok or was offered the option to download TikTok. It would add an additional $10,000 fine for each day the violation continued. The ban will now be on hold until a final decision is made on the merits of TikTok’s claims in court.
“We are pleased that the judge threw out this unconstitutional law and hundreds of thousands of Montanans can continue to express themselves, earn a living and find community on TikTok,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement about the order.
TikTok Ordinance in Montana with TechCrunch on Scribd
