Montana bans TikTok: spy for China
Republican Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte signed into law Wednesday a statewide ban on the wildly popular short-form video app TikTok, owned by Beijing-based company ByteDance. The platform has been accused of being a potential data transmission conduit that the Chinese government could use to spread disinformation.
The governor of Montana, Greg Gianforte
“The Communist Party of China uses TikTok to spy on Americans, violate their privacy, and harvest their personal, private and sensitive information is well documented,” Gianforte said in a statement.
"Today, Montana is taking more decisive action than any other state to protect the private data and sensitive personal information of Montanans from being collected by the Communist Party of China," the governor said.
Last month, bill SB419 passed the Montana House of Representatives by a vote of 54-43. It was later sent to his desk for signature.
The ban is expected to begin on January 1, 2024. At that point, the law will impose fines of $10,000 a day on any "entity" for any instance in which a person "is offered the opportunity" to access or download TikTok. Covered entities would include app stores or TikTok itself. It is important to note that users are not targeted.
Of course, it's uncertain whether the law will ever be enforced, as it is certain it will face legal challenges from TikTok and groups like the ACLU, which has declared the law unconstitutional and "tramples on the free speech of hundreds of thousands of Montanesi”.
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While not announcing plans to file a lawsuit, TikTok spokeswoman Brooke Oberwetter said Montana's new law violates the First Amendment, which is tied to freedom of the press .
“We want to reassure Montanans that they can continue to use TikTok to express themselves, make a living, and find community, as we continue to work to advocate for the rights of our users inside and outside of Montana,” Oberwetter said in a statement. .
Earlier this year, the US government banned TikTok on government-owned devices. At least 30 states have banned the use of TikTok on government-owned devices — and some state universities ban it from their networks — but Montana is the first to target civilian use.
In March, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul blocked a federal law that would have enforced a nationwide TikTok ban.
“Every data-gathering allegation that has been blamed on TikTok could also be blamed on the big national tech companies,” Paul said in a Senate speech. “One of the bills they are considering is broad enough to give the president the power to designate any country he sees fit as an adversary, and any company that fits that definition. In practice, the president will have unlimited authority to ban speeches."
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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-montana-vieta-tiktok-spia-per-la-cina/ on Fri, 19 May 2023 07:00:01 +0000.