TikTok logo displayed on mobile phone.
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Montana legislators approved an invoice on Friday, that would ban TikTok from being offered in the state at 54-43 vote. The bill, SB 419, is currently being referred to Republican Governor of Montana Greg Gianforte for approval.
TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, is likely to take action to prevent the bill from becoming law. If implemented, it would be the first statewide ban of its kind.
Beyond Montana, federal lawmakers for months have been pushing for a law that would ban TikTok nationwide if ByteDance doesn’t sell its stake in the viral video app. That threat presents potentially serious challenges to TokTok, and the company has invested millions of dollars in efforts to combat the effort.
The Montana bill cites Chinese surveillance capabilities and the state’s ability to steal intellectual property as some of the driving forces behind the ban. If the law is enacted, mobile app store providers like Apple And Google will be required to disable Tiktok downloads from within Montana, and TikTok will be banned from providing the platform to state residents.
The ban will go into effect on January 1, 2024.
“TikTok’s theft of information and data from users and its ability to share that data with the Chinese Communist Party is an unacceptable violation of Montana’s privacy rights,” the bill reads. Montana is one of the least populous states in the United States, with just over 1 million residents according to the 2020 census.
Gianforte knows the tech industry very well. Before taking office, he ran RightNow Technologies, a software company he founded in 1997. prophesy acquired RightNow in 2012 for $1.5 billion. As of 2018, Gianforte has an estimated net worth of over $189 million, according to OpenSecret.org.
In 2020, Oracle agreed to provide backend technology to TikTok as part of a deal to keep the app from being banned by the US government at the time. Oracle is now cloud storage service for all TikTok use in the US
Customers in Montana will not be penalized if they fail to comply with or evade the ban. But the companies, including TikTok, face a $10,000 fine for each violation if they are found to have violated the ban.
State Senator Shelley Vance, a Republican, sponsored the bill. Vance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
TikTok said it opposes the bill, adding that there is no clear path for Montana authorities to enforce or punish violators.
“Supporters of the bill have acknowledged that they have no viable plan to run this effort to censor the voices of Americans, and the constitutionality of the bill will be decided by the courts,” TikTok said. in a statement. “We will continue to fight for TikTok users and creators in Montana, whose livelihoods and First Amendment rights are threatened by this egregious government violation.”
