First U.S. State Passes Legislation to Ban TikTok

On Friday, Montana became the first U.S. state to pass legislation to ban TikTok.

The Montana House voted 54-43 to completely ban the social media platform, and the legislation heads to the desk of Gov. Greg Gianforte (R).

“The governor will carefully consider any bill the legislature sends to his desk,” the governor’s office told CBS News.

Montana became the first US state to pass legislation banning TikTok on all personal devices, sending a bill to Gov. Greg Gianforte prohibiting TikTok from operating within state lines and barring app stores from offering TikTok for downloads https://t.co/3ImHCFoGfw

— CNN (@CNN) April 14, 2023

https://twitter.com/AnonOpsUnited/status/1647105913415962624

CBS News reported:

Gianforte has already banned TikTok on government devices in Montana. The Senate passed the bill 30-20 in March.

The proposal backed by Montana’s GOP-controlled legislature is more sweeping than bans in place in nearly half the states and the federal government, which prohibit TikTok on government devices.

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In response to the bill’s passage, a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement to CBS News on Friday afternoon, “The bill’s champions have admitted that they have no feasible plan for operationalizing this attempt to censor American voices and that the bill’s constitutionality will be decided by the courts. 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.”

TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese tech company ByteDance, has been under intense scrutiny over concerns it could hand over user data to the Chinese government or push pro-Beijing propaganda and misinformation on the platform. Leaders at the FBI, CIA and numerous lawmakers of both parties have raised those concerns but haven’t presented any evidence to prove it has happened.

Read Senate Bill 419 below: