"US judge blocks Montana’s TikTok state ban: ‘oversteps state power’", 1 Dec 2023

A US judge has blocked Montana’s first-of-its kind state ban on the use of short-video sharing app TikTok from taking effect...saying it violated the free speech rights of users.

...[U]S district judge Donald Molloy said the law “oversteps state power and infringes on the constitutional rights of users”.

TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese parent company ByteDance, did not...comment.

Montana became the first state to ban TikTok...when it passed legislation that would target marketplaces like... Google Play Store and...App Store, forbidding them from making the app available to users and fining...up to $10,000 per violation.

TikTok sued Montana in May...arguing the legislation violated the first amendment free speech rights of the company and users.

TikTok said in previous a court filing it “has not shared, and would not share, US user data with the Chinese government..."

Molloy... found merit to...arguments raised by TikTok...that the law would cause irreparable harm to the company, and that TikTok has a number of safeguards in place surrounding user data.

“While there may be a public interest in protecting Montana consumers, the state has not shown how this TikTok bill does that,” he said.

The opinion stated that an estimated 150 million people in the United States access TikTok every month, including over 380,000 people in Montana.