One part of the United States is about to completely ban the use of TikTok. The lawmakers in the state of Montana's legislature have voted for the ban, which will also prevent any app store from offering the TikTok app for download, under a penalty of $10,000 a day.
CNN reports that the Montana Senate previously voted in favor of the ban in March, and today, the Montana House voted 54-43 for the bill, labeled as SB419. The final step is to send the bill to Montana Governor Greg Gianforte for his signature. Gianforte previously signed a bill banning the use of TikTok from being used on state government devices.
Even if he does sign the bill into law, the ban would not go into effect until January 2024. The bill also states the ban would be nullified if the US government passes a ban nationwide, or if TikTok's China-based parent company ByteDance sells off the social network to a US company. Any person who already installed the app on their device can also still use it under this bill.
A spokesperson for TikTok is quoted by CNN as saying:
The bill’s champions have admitted that they have no feasible plan for operationalizing this attempt to censor American voices and that the bill’s constitutionality will be decided by the courts. We will continue to fight for TikTok users and creators in Montana whose livelihoods and First Amendment rights are threatened by this egregious government overreach.
As with the previous bans that have been put on TikTok on government devices in the US and other countries, Montana's lawmakers who voted for the bill claim that data from the app could be taken and used by the Chinese government to spy on its users. So far, there has been no evidence to suggest this is actually happening.
Some US lawmakers have been trying for years to pass a bill that would completely ban TikTok in the country, but so far those efforts have failed.
Source: CNN
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