Montana lawmakers have voted 54-43 today to ban TikTok from operating in the state and ban app stores from offering it for download. The legislation is likely to become law, making Montana the first state in the US to ban the popular social media platform — a move that could spark a constitutional battle and jeopardize digital rights.
People who already have TikTok on their devices wouldn’t be breaking the law, which now goes to Greg Gianforte, Montana’s Republican governor. The move comes after years of amorphous claims by the US government under two presidential administrations that TikTok, which has 150 million US users, poses a threat to national security because its parent company, ByteDance, is a Chinese company.
Gianforte is expected to sign the new bill, which will take effect on January 1, 2024. In December, he banned TikTok on government-owned devices in Montana, a move other states have also taken in recent months. Announcing that ban, Gianforte said, “I also encourage Montanans to protect their personal information and stop using TikTok.”
However, a statewide ban is radically different from a government device embargo and general encouragement. It has implications for Montana residents’ speech and ability to hear speech – rights protected by the US First Amendment.
“We are under no illusions that this will not be challenged,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen told The New York Times on Wednesday. “I think this is the next frontier in First Amendment case law that will probably have to come from the U.S. Supreme Court. And I think that’s probably where this is going.”
Shortly after today’s vote, TikTok condemned the bill on both First Amendment and logistical grounds.
“The bill’s proponents have admitted that they have no viable plan to operationalize this attempt to censor American votes and that the constitutionality of the bill will be decided by the courts,” TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said in a statement. “We will continue to fight for TikTok users and creators in Montana whose livelihoods and First Amendment rights are threatened by this blatant government overreach.”
An earlier version of the bill would have required internet providers to block connections to TikTok in Montana, a task ISP representatives said was impracticable. An industry association representing companies that run mobile app stores, namely Google and Apple, also told the Montana legislature that it would be virtually impossible to stop TikTok downloads in Montana.
Google declined to comment. Apple did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment.
Riana Pfefferkorn, a researcher at the Stanford Internet Observatory, says Montana Attorney General Knudsen’s claims of a “next frontier in First Amendment case law” are exaggerated, especially given the AG’s comments during the recent Time interview. In it, Knudsen specifically noted that his office was motivated to pursue a full TikTok ban after hearing protests from parents that TikTok posts contained discussions of drug use, porn and suicide.
