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Tiktok, a video-sharing app, has filed a lawsuit against Montana over a recent law that forbids the use of the service there.
After Republican Governor Greg Gianforte approved the bill on Wednesday, Montana became the first state in the US to outlaw the app. In January 2024, the law is expected to go into force.
Gainforte stated that the purpose of the measure was "to protect the personal and private information of Montanans from the Chinese Communist Party."
A spokeswoman for TikTok told CBS News that the restriction was "unconstitutional" and expressed confidence that the firm would win the legal battle to overturn it.
The statement stated, "To preserve our company and the hundreds of thousands of TikTok users in Montana, we are appealing Montana's unlawful TikTok ban. We are certain that our legal argument will succeed since it is supported by a very solid body of evidence.
According to the company's legal argument, the ban "effects a prior restraint on the speech of Plaintiff and other TikTok users, unconstitutionally shutting down the forum for speech for all speakers on the app and singling out these speakers for disfavored treatment with the content-based rationale that videos on TikTok are harmful to minors."
According to the lawsuit, a further justification for the ban's overturn was that the US government, not a specific state, should have jurisdiction over security issues relating to user data access by the Chinese government.
The restriction, which threatens their livelihood, has already led Montanan TikTok video creators to sue the state government.
On Wednesday, only hours after the governor gave the law his approval, the organization filed the suit. They assert that the prohibition infringes upon their First Amendment freedom of access to and expression of "lawful speech."
