TikTok sues Montana over first US state ban

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TikTok is suing Montana in a bid to stop the US state from banning it on national security grounds, arguing the move is both “illegal” and “unconstitutional.”

The social media app, owned by China’s ByteDance, filed a lawsuit in federal court on Monday, just days after the Montana governor signed the law into law a unique bill of its kind which since January would ban app stores from allowing TikTok downloads in the state. It would also ban the app from operating in the western state, which has a population of about 1.1 million.

The proposed ban comes as governments and regulators around the world have raised concerns that TikTok’s ties to China could allow the app to collect data on its users to use for spying purposes. In particular, TikTok has become a Flash point amid rising tensions between China and the United States, where it has 150 million users, with Washington calling for the short-form video app to divest from its Chinese parent or face a federal ban.

In Monday’s lawsuit, TikTok argued that Montana’s law violated its First Amendment free speech rights and the alleged national security concerns used to justify the ban were matters of “exclusive federal concern.”

The company also said the ban violated U.S. foreign and interstate trade rules and in fact an unconstitutional “law of arrest,” a piece of legislation that convicts a group of a felony without trial.

“The state has taken these extraordinary and unprecedented measures based on nothing more than baseless speculation,” the lawsuit said.

According to Montana law, Tick ​​tock and app stores, like Apple and Google, could face fines of $10,000 per violation per day if they don’t comply.

Last week a group of TikTok creators filed a lawsuit against the law based on the first amendment.

The lawsuit sparks a potential court battle over free speech, even after TikTok attempted to distance itself from its parent company by spending more than $1.5 billion on “Project Texas,” a corporate restructuring plan to safeguard data and user content from the Chinese influence.

Negotiations on the deal, however, have stalled, and earlier this year the US government threatened to ban TikTok if its Chinese owners don’t sell their stake, a move Beijing publicly opposes.

Former President Donald Trump in 2020 tried to ban the app in the US, but the attempt was stopped by the courts. TikTok was recently banned from government devices in the US, UK, Canada and the EU.

“We are challenging Montana’s unconstitutional TikTok ban to protect our business and the hundreds of thousands of TikTok users in Montana,” a TikTok spokesperson said Monday. “We believe our legal challenge will prevail based on an extremely strong set of precedents and facts.”