The governor of Montana signed a law yesterday Wednesday that bans the TikTok platformwhich marks the start of legal battle that will likely reach Washington, D.C., as the federal Congress considers a bill to ban the popular app statewide.

“To protect users’ personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party, I have banned TikTok in Montana,” Greg Gianforte, the Republican governor of the northwestern state of a million and a half, said on Twitter.

TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance and many US politicians argue that the short video platform used by 150 million Americans allows Beijing to spy and manipulate the users. Something the company categorically denies.

The state Congress in Montana passed a law in mid-April ordering online mobile app stores (Apple and Google) to stop stocking the TikTok app starting January 1, 2024. Those companies face fines of $10,000 a day if they violate the law, however the text does not provide anything for the users.

The law “infringes on Montana citizens’ freedom of expression,” a TikTok spokeswoman said yesterday. The spokeswoman referred to the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

“The constitutionality of this text will be judged in the courts. We will continue to fight for TikTok users and creators in Montana,” he added before the vote.

Beyond the issues of personal data and misinformation, American politicians also accuse the application of harmful effects on the health of younger people (addiction, depression). Some Democratic politicians, however, argue that other social networking sites, such as Instagram, should also be subject to scrutiny for these issues.

The powerful civil and civil rights group ACLU accused state authorities of censorship.

“With this ban, Governor Gianforte and the Montana Legislature are trampling on the freedom of expression of hundreds of thousands of state residents who use this app to express themselves, find information and promote their small businesses in the name of anti-Chinese sentiment “, Keegan Medrano, executive of the ACLU’s local organization in Montana, commented yesterday.

The law would be repealed if ByteDance were acquired by a US company (or a company from a country that is not considered an enemy of the US).

The White House has demanded that ByteDance find such a solution to be allowed to continue operating in the country. Joe Biden’s administration is discussing with Congress various draft laws to ban the TikTok app, as executive orders signed by his predecessor Donald Trump to that end have failed.