Montana first US state to ban TikTok on personal devices

Montana has become the first US state to attempt to ban video sharing app TikTok on personal devices, following bans on downloading the app on the phones of government officials in around 30 US states as well as by the US Federal government.

While US president Joe Biden has threatened a possible national ban on the app unless the service is sold, Montana has gone a stage further by attempting to implement a ban at state-wide level on all personal devices, to take effect from the beginning of next year.

Montana governor Greg Gianforte said the ban was justified in order to prevent citizens’ data falling into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.

The Montana law proposes to fine entities that make the service available to users rather than private individuals themselves. It is not clear that companies such as Apple or Google have the capability to prevent downloads at a state, rather than national level, without significant changes to the way their app stores work.

Users in Montana could also circumvent the ban by downloading it out of state or by using a VPN.

TikTok, one of the most popular apps in the US (but which has attracted the hostility of a wide spectrum of US lawmakers because of the alleged links of parent Bytedance to the Chinese state) is expected to launch a legal challenge.

The company has said that the planned ban infringes the first amendment right to free speech.

The ban also covers other foreign social media services that are alleged to collect data on behalf of hostile states, such as China’s WeChat, owned by Tencent, and Russia’s Telegram.