The Montana House of Representatives on Friday gave final passage Friday to a bill banning the social media app TikTok from operating in the state, a move that is bound to face legal challenges, but also serve as a testing ground for the TikTok-free US many national lawmakers envision due to concerns over potential Chinese spying.
The House voted 54-43 in favor of the measure, which would make Montana the first state with a total ban on the app. It goes further than prohibitions already put in place by nearly half the states — including Montana — and the US federal government, which prohibit TikTok on government-owned devices.
The measure now goes to Governor Greg Gianforte, who did not say if he would sign it into law.
Photo: Reuters
A statement provided by a state spokesperson said the governor “will carefully consider” all bills the legislature sends to his desk.
Gianforte banned TikTok on state government devices last year, saying that the app posed a “significant risk” to sensitive state data.
TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter promised a legal challenge over the measure’s constitutionality, saying the bill’s supporters “have admitted that they have no feasible plan” to enforce “this attempt to censor American voices.”
The company “will continue to fight for TikTok users and creators in Montana whose livelihoods and First Amendment rights are threatened by this egregious government overreach,” Oberwetter said.
TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動), has been under intense scrutiny over worries it could hand over user data to the Chinese government, or push pro-Beijing propaganda and misinformation on the platform.
Leaders at the FBI and the CIA, along with numerous lawmakers, have raised such concerns, but have not presented any evidence that it has happened.
Ban supporters point to two Chinese laws that compel companies in the country to cooperate with the government on state intelligence work. They also cite troubling episodes such as a disclosure by ByteDance in December last year that it fired four employees who accessed the IP addresses and other data of two journalists while attempting to uncover the source of a leaked report about the company.
The US Congress is considering legislation that does not single out TikTok specifically, but gives the US Department of Commerce the ability more broadly to restrict tech platforms from disseminating any information it deems a threat. That bill is being backed by the White House, but it has received pushback from privacy advocates, public commentators and others who say the language is too expansive.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, whose office drafted the state’s legislation, said in a social media post on Friday that the bill “is a critical step to ensuring we are protecting Montanans’ privacy,” even as he acknowledged that a court battle looms.
The measure would prohibit downloads of TikTok in the state and would fine any “entity” — an app store or TikTok — US$10,000 per day for each time someone “is offered the ability” to access or download the app. There would not be penalties for users.
The ban would not take effect until January next year and would become void if the US Congress passes a national measure or if TikTok severs its connections with China.
A representative from the tech trade group TechNet told state lawmakers that app stores do not have the ability to geofence apps on a state-by-state basis, so the Apple App Store and Google Play Store would not be able to enforce the law.
“Responsibility should be on an app to determine where it can operate, not an app store,” TechNet executive Ashley Sutton said.
Knudsen has said that apps for online gambling can be disabled in states that do not allow it, so the same should be possible for TikTok.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home