Five TikTok users filed a lawsuit in federal court in Montana after it was announced on Wednesday that the social media platform was to be banned in the US state, seeking to overturn the decision.

The lawsuit was filed shortly after the governor of this northwestern state in the US, Greg Gianforte, a Republican, approved a bill that prohibits from January 1, 2024 the availability of the TikTok platform from the app stores for mobile phones (Apple and Google), under penalty of a fine $10,000 a day.

“Montana cannot prohibit its residents from viewing or posting on TikTok any more than it can prohibit the Wall Street Journal because of the identity of its owner or because of its views,” the lawsuit states.

TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, and many American politicians believe that the platform, which is used by 150 million Americans, allows Beijing to spy on and manipulate users. The company categorically denies this.

Gianforte said the ban is aimed “to protect Montanans’ data from the Chinese Communist Party.”

The plaintiffs, for their part, believe that the state violates free speech and tries to usurp powers of the federal government, which is responsible for national security.

According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs have a significant following on TikTok and earn money from the app.

Montana has become the first US state to ban the social media platform and will be a test case for a possible nationwide ban on TikTok.

The law will be repealed if ByteDance is acquired by a US company or a company from a country that is not considered an enemy of the US.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

Various organizations, from federal agencies in the US, the European Commission to the BBC, have banned their employees from having this application on their mobile phones.