TikTok testified as it was expected recourse against Montana, after state authorities last week adopted a law that prohibits the use of social media from next year.

This ban “violates the US Constitution in many ways”, the company complains, and above all the First Amendment which guarantees “freedom of expression”.

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.

In mid-April, the Montana legislature adopted 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 of 10,000 dollars per day.

The law will be repealed if ByteDance acquired by an American company or company of a country not considered an enemy of the US.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. India banned it completely in 2020.

In his appeal TikTok it also refers to the principle of equality: “Instead of creating a regulatory framework for social media in general, the law bans TikTok and only TikTok for punitive reasons (…) based on theoretical concerns about data security and content control ».

Democratic politicians have already underlined that many of the accusations against TikTok regarding data privacy, misinformation or its harmful effects on the health of the youngest (addiction, depression) also apply to other social media.

As soon as Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the bill into law on Wednesday, many voices were raised to accuse the state of censorship or to point out that the law will be difficult to implement, both practically and legally.

“With this ban, Governor Gianforte and the Montana Legislature are trampling on the freedom of speech of hundreds of thousands of residents who use this app to express themselves, find information and promote their small business in the name of anti-Chinese sentiment,” he said in a statement. ACLU executive Keegan Medrano Wednesday.

Five TikTok users have already appealed in federal court in Montana seeking to strike down the law.

Under the First Amendment of the US Constitution, “TikTok has the right to distribute information and users have the right to receive information and rebroadcast it,” said Lyrisa Lindsky, a law professor at the University of Florida.

Consequently, the law “is very likely to be considered unconstitutional”, he estimated.

Non-governmental organizations and Democratic politicians also reiterate that VPN users will be able to bypass the law without penalty because the law only fines app stores.