Federal judge prevents Montana TikTok ban from taking effect

Judge Donald Molloy on Thursday issued a preliminary injunction against the statewide ban on the video-sharing app. The ban is the first of its kind in the country and would have prevented app stores from offering TikTok to residents in the state beginning Jan. 1. Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte in May signed the ban into law, and TikTok filed a lawsuit the same month seeking to invalidate the measure. Molloy ruled that the law likely violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. A final ruling will come after the case moves through the courts.

Have other states banned the app? The federal government and more than half of U.S. states have banned TikTok from devices officially used by the government. Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand have also placed restrictions on the use of the app on government devices. American lawmakers are concerned that the app’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, may share user data with the Chinese government. The company has said it would not share data with China.

Dig deeper: Listen to Kelsey Reed and Jonathan Boes’ report on the Concurrently podcast about how to talk about data privacy with children.