A US federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the ban on the use of TikTok in the state of Montana, which was set to take effect in January 2024, ruling that the hugely popular short-video sharing application has every chance of winning the ongoing lawsuit.
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Judge Donald Molloy imposed a temporary injunction against the ban on the Chinese application, which is hugely popular among young people, pending the merits of the case, originally filed by TikTok in May.
Mr. Molloy said it was likely that TikTok and its users would succeed in the case because the law in force in Montana not only violates the right to free speech, but also violates it because foreign policy issues are solely the responsibility of the federal government.
“The current record leaves little doubt that the Montana Legislature and Attorney General were more interested in China’s alleged role in TikTok than in protecting Montana consumers,” Donald Molloy said in his decision.
Montana (Western USA) passed a law last May banning TikTok, a subsidiary of the Chinese technology group ByteDance. The text requires Apple and Google to stop offering TikTok in their mobile application stores from January 1, 2024, punishable by a fine of $10,000 per day per violation.
The social network had filed a lawsuit to overturn this ban, saying it violated the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression.
TikTok has been in the crosshairs of American authorities for several months. Many officials believe the short and entertaining video platform allows Beijing to spy on and manipulate its 150 million users in the United States.