HELENA, Mont. (AP) – The Montana House gave final reading Friday to a bill that would ban the social media app TikTok from operating in the state, a move that will face legal challenges but also become a testing ground for the TikTok-free America envisioned by national lawmakers. . due to concerns about potential Chinese spying.
The state House voted 54-43 to pass the measure, which would make Montana the first state with a total ban on the app. More than half of the states — including Montana — and the U.S. federal government have banned TikTok on government-owned devices.
The measure now goes to Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte, who declined to say Friday that he plans to sign it into law. A statement issued by spokeswoman Brooke Metrione said the governor “will carefully consider” all bills sent by the Legislature to his desk.
Gianforte banned TikTok from state government devices last year, saying the app posed a “significant risk” to sensitive state data.
TikTok spokeswoman Brooke Oberwetter promised a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the measure, saying the bill’s supporters “have admitted they have no viable plan” to implement “this attempt to censor the voice of America.”
The company “will continue to fight against TikTok users and creators in Montana whose livelihoods and First Amendment rights are threatened by this evil government overreach,” Oberwetter said.
TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, has come under intense scrutiny over concerns it could hand over user data to the Chinese government or push pro-Beijing propaganda and misinformation on its platform. The head of the FBI, the CIA and many lawmakers from both parties have raised these concerns but have offered no evidence that this is the case.
Proponents of the ban point to two Chinese laws that force companies in the country to cooperate with the government on state intelligence work. He also cited troubling episodes such as the disclosure by ByteDance in December that it fired four employees who accessed the IP addresses and other data of two journalists while trying to find the source of a leaked report about the company.
Congress is considering legislation that doesn’t specifically target TikTok, but gives the Commerce Department broader powers to limit foreign threats to the tech platform. The bill is supported by the White House, but has received pushback from privacy advocates, right-wing commentators and others who say the language is expansive.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, whose office created the legislation, said in a social media post Friday that the bill “is a critical step to ensure that we protect the privacy of Montanans,” though he acknowledged a court battle.
Montana’s ban won’t go into effect until January 2024 and will become invalid if Congress enacts a national ban or if TikTok cuts ties with China.
TikTok says it has plans to protect its US users’ data.
Montana’s bill would ban TikTok downloads in the state and would fine any “entity” — the app store or TikTok — $10,000 per day for each person “offered the ability” to access or download the app. There will be no penalty for the user.
The bill was introduced in February, just weeks after the Chinese spy balloon flew over Montana, but it was drafted earlier.
A representative from tech trade group TechNet told Montana lawmakers that app stores don’t have the ability to geofence apps on a state-by-state basis, so the Apple App Store and Google Play Store can’t enforce the law.
Ashley Sutton, TechNet’s executive director for Washington state and the northwest, said Thursday that “the onus should be on the app to determine where it can be used, not the app store.”
Knudsen, the attorney general, has said that online gambling apps can be disabled in countries that do not allow it, so they should work for TikTok.
Hadero reported from New York.