Judge blocks Montana law banning TikTok

A Montana judge blocked a state ban on TikTok from going into effect on Thursday.

The social media app filed a lawsuit in May in the U.S. District Court in Montana alleging the law violated the First Amendment and tried to block the state from enforcing the ban.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy said the ban oversteps state power and “infringes on the Constitutional right of users and businesses,” The Associated Press reported.

Montana is the first state with a law looking to ban the social media platform from operating in the state and ban app stores from offering TikTok to residents as soon as Jan. 1, 2024.

The state’s Republican Legislature was the first state to pass a complete ban on the app, arguing that the Chinese government could gain user information from the app since the platform’s parent company ByteDance is based in Beijing.

The app has said the state could limit the amount of user data collected by the platform instead of enacting a complete ban and attorneys for the company said the state has gone “completely overboard” with its attempts to regulate the social media app.

The judge said while the state claimed it was attempting to protect user’s data, the state has shown that it was “more interested in targeting China’s ostensible role in TikTok,” the AP reported.

TikTok has been banned by more than half of U.S. states and the federal government on official devices. The company has said the restrictions are unnecessary.

Virginia and 17 other Republican-led states filed a brief in support of Montana’s law in September, calling the law “the latest in a storied tradition of consumer protection laws.”

Molloy wrote Thursday that state Attorney General Austin Knudsen, who drafted the legislation, could instead provide public service announcements warning people about the data TikTok collects since most users consent to the company’s data collection policies to use the app.

Cybersecurity experts say that even if the judge allows the law to be implemented in Montana, it could be challenging to enforce.

Knudsen communications director Emilee Cantrell emphasized that the judge’s decision is a preliminary matter.

“The judge indicated several times that the analysis could change as the case proceeds and the State has the opportunity to present a full factual record,” Cantrell said in an emailed statement. “We look forward to presenting the complete legal argument to defend the law that protects Montanans from the Chinese Communist Party obtaining and using their data.”

The Associated Press contributed.

This story was updated at 12:00 p.m.