HELENA, Mont. — Montana’s plans to ban TikTok statewide was blocked on Thursday by a federal judge according to AP News, only a month before it would have been put into effect.
The judge, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy, said the ban “oversteps state power and infringes on the Constitutional rights of users and businesses.”
The ban was introduced in May where Montana lawmakers passed the ban, arguing that the app could take user information and give it to its Chinese parent company ByteDance.
The ban would try to prevent an app store from letting users download the app by adding a $10,000 fine for every day TikTok is available for download in the state.
“Despite the state’s attempt to defend (the law) as a consumer protection bill, the current record leaves little doubt that Montana’s legislature and Attorney General were more interested in targeting China’s ostensible role in TikTok than with protecting Montana consumers,” Molloy wrote Thursday.
The measure was scheduled to take effect at the start of 2024 and was already expected to be challenged legally.
