A group of five TikTok users have reportedly launched a lawsuit aimed at preventing Montana from banning the platform.
Five users of Chinese social media platform TikTok have reportedly filed papers in a U.S. federal court aimed at blocking Montana from banning the platform.
It comes after the state’s Governor Greg Gianforte (R) announced on Thursday that he had signed a ban on the platform into law, making it the first in the country to completely ban the platform.
However, according to a report by Reuters, the group of five TikTok users believe that such a ban is ultimately in violation of their first amendment rights, and involves Montana legislators illegally wielding powers that only exist at the Federal level.
“Montana can no more ban its residents from viewing or posting to TikTok than it could ban the Wall Street Journal because of who owns it or the ideas it publishes,” the lawsuit — filed on behalf of a pro-Tiktoker, a swimwear designer, a Marine Corps veteran, a rancher, and an applied human physiology student — claims.
A spokesperson for the state’s attorney general, Austin Knudsen, has responded to the filing by saying that they were expecting at least one legal challenge in response to the law, and are prepared to fight it.
“We expected a legal challenge and are fully prepared to defend the law,” the official confirmed.
A former executive at ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, says the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had “supreme access” to all data held by the Chinese tech company, including on servers in the United States. https://t.co/9UbtIK1Uux
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 18, 2023