The video platform TikTok has gone to court against its ban in the US state of Montana. She complains that the ban violates, among other things, the right to freedom of speech enshrined in the constitution.
TikTok has filed a lawsuit against the first complete ban on its video platform in the USA. Representatives of the platform, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, argued that a similar law in the US state of Montana violates constitutional freedom of speech and is based on “unfounded speculation” that the Chinese government could gain access to American users’ data.
TikTok has not shared US data with the Chinese government and will not, the company said. There are measures to protect the privacy of TikTok users and ensure their security. All user data generated in the USA would also be stored there.
TikTok users complained last week
Last week, five Montana-based users of the app filed a lawsuit, citing identical arguments. Among other things, they also stated that Montana had no authority to decide national security matters. Both lawsuits were filed in federal court in Missoula.
Republican Governor Greg Gianforte signed the law into law last Wednesday, and the lawsuit was filed with the court hours later. The law is scheduled to come into force on January 1st.
Gianforte explained that he wanted to protect the “personal and private information of the people of Montana from the Chinese Communist Party”. Violation of the law carries a fine of $10,000 per day.
More than a billion users worldwide
Several Western states have banned public sector workers from using TikTok on work devices. In India, TikTok is even blocked entirely due to privacy concerns. The Chinese government has denied urging Chinese companies to hand over personal user data collected abroad.
With more than a billion users worldwide, TikTok is particularly popular with the younger generation. The video app has long overtaken other large networks such as YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook in terms of usage time.