Montana’s unprecedented state-wide ban of Chinese language short-video app, TikTok, was imagined to take impact on January 1, 2024, however as reported by Reuters, US District Decide Donald Molloy issued a preliminary injunction only one month forward to dam stated ban. Which means for now, ByteDance and app shops are allowed to proceed serving TikTok to customers throughout the Montana state, with out being fined $10,000 every day from the beginning date of the ban.
The decide was quoted saying the ban “oversteps state power and infringes on the constitutional rights of users” — echoing the authorized problem filed by 5 TikTok creators on the day after the invoice was signed again in Could, in addition to one other lawsuit filed by the platform’s proprietor, ByteDance, in a while in the identical month. It was additionally questionable as as to whether Google and Apple may have successfully enforced such a state-wide ban on their app shops.
The related invoice was initially drafted based mostly on claims that this Chinese language app would share US customers’ private information with the Chinese language authorities, to which ByteDance had lengthy denied because the presidency of Donald Trump. “TikTok US user data is stored in the US, with strict controls on employee access,” the corporate claimed again in August 2020 — and once more by way of a brand new “transparency” push earlier this 12 months, close to “Project Texas” for safeguarding US person information with assist from Oracle.
Thus far, no different US state had handed a invoice to bar TikTok. The end result of Montana’s case might maintain the important thing to this Chinese language app’s destiny throughout the remainder of the nation.