TikTok challenges Montana ban as more Americans worry about app’s threat

Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok’s threat to national security has been a common refrain over the last year as a movement of states and entire countries have banned the app from being downloaded on state and federal devices. But starting next year, TikTok will be banned throughout Montana from being downloaded on any device once a user crosses state lines unless current legal challenges prevent the law from taking effect.

The law would make it illegal for Google’s and Apple’s app stores to offer TikTok within the state, but would not punish individuals who use the app.

Two tech groups say the social media app should stay available to download. As part of a lawsuit filed by TikTok to keep the app available to Montana residents, the groups Net Choice and Chamber of Progress said in a joint court filing, “Montana’s effort to cut Montanans off from the global network of TikTok users ignores and undermines the structure, design, and purpose of the internet.”

If the ban was to take effect, the tech groups argue that it would create an internet where “information available to users becomes regionally divided based on local politicians’ whims or preferences. The internet, as a whole, will become fragmented and its value to humanity diminished.”

While the tech groups are in unison with TikTok, a recent poll shows the majority of Americans believe the app is a national security risk. This reason is why Montana lawmakers passed the ban back in May. Before that, a handful of Republican-led states banned the app on state devices, triggering the federal government to do the same.

It’s not just the U.S. concerned over the Chinese-based app. Australia implemented a similar ban on federal devices and is now looking to take it a step further by potentially barring another Chinese-based app WeChat.

Lean more about WeChat in this report from Straight Arrow News’ Business Correspondent Simone Del Rosario.

While TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has long argued the Chinese government does not have access to American user data, a former company executive said in May the Chinese government did have access to user data through a backdoor channel in TikTok’s coding. The bans – and potential bans — being implemented over TikTok speak to the distrust and disconnect there is between China and the U.S.