• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 16, 2023

Montana lawmakers on Friday passed a bill banning most uses of TikTok in the state, largely due to concerns about national security.

Senate Bill 419 now heads to Governor Greg Gianforte, who hasn't yet said whether he plans to sign the measure, which has an effective start date of January 1, 2024. If signed, the measure will almost certainly face a legal challenge.

If enacted and allowed to take effect, the law will prohibit app stores from offering TikTok to users in Montana, and prohibit from people from using TikTok in the state (with some exceptions for law enforcement and other governmental functions). An earlier version of the bill also would have prohibited internet service providers from offering TikTok to Montana users, but that provision was deleted from the final version.

The measure doesn't penalize users, but provides for sanctions of $10,000 per day against TikTok and mobile app stores. The statute has exemptions for “law enforcement activities, national security interests and activities, security research activities, or essential government uses permitted by the governor on the information technology system of the state.”

TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said last week that supporters of the bill have “no feasible plan for operationalizing” the measure.

“We will continue to fight for TikTok users and creators in Montana whose livelihoods and First Amendment rights are threatened by this egregious government overreach,” Oberwetter stated.

Public officials in the U.S. have been scrutinizing TikTok for months -- largely over concerns that data collected by the company about U.S. users is being shared with China.

Numerous states have banned the use of TikTok on government owned devices, but Montana is the first state to attempt to prohibit people from accessing the app on private devices.

The Montana bill contains language saying TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, “gathers significant information from its users, accessing data against their will to share with the People's Republic of China.”

One provision says the bill will be “void” if TikTok is acquired by a company that is not incorporated in a country considered a foreign adversary.

Civil rights groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Democracy and Technology and Electronic Frontier Foundation opposed the measure, arguing it violates the First Amendment.

“SB 419 is censorship,” the groups said in a letter sent to lawmakers last week. “It would unjustly cut Montanans off from a platform where they speak out and exchange ideas everyday, and it would set an alarming precedent for excessive government control over how Montanans use the internet.”