A lawsuit against the Montana Government was filed by a group of TikTok users after a statewide TikTok ban was signed by Montana’s governor.
The lawsuit was announced on Twitter by Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, where it stated that five TikTok creators challenged the state government and will be led by Ambika Kumar. AP News previously reported that Kumar helped another group of creators in a previous lawsuit after former president Donald Trump threatened to shut down TikTok in 2020. Trump’s ban was put to a halt before it was revoked by the Biden administration, as per The Verge.
According to the 44-page filed lawsuit, the Montana TikTok ban violates the First Amendment and claimed that it deprives Montanans access to information based on current events. It also stated that the law creates a restraint on allowing others to explore the “vast realms of human thought and knowledge.”
“The law creates a prior restraint on expression that violates the First Amendment, depriving Montanans of access to a forum that for many is a “principal source for knowing current events” and “otherwise exploring the vast realms of human thought and knowledge.”
The lawsuit also argued that the state has no authority to enact a law that could be perceived as “advancing the foreign policy of the United States,” nor does it have the power to ban an entire forum of communication. The lawsuit claimed that type of action is dangerous and that these forms of communication are protected by the First Amendment.
“Montana has no authority to enact laws advancing what it believes should be the United States’ foreign policy or its national security interests, nor may Montana ban an entire forum for communication based on its perceptions that some speech shared through that forum, though protected by the First Amendment, is dangerous.”
Montana’s TikTok ban was the first in the country to ban the access to the social media platform after government officials claimed that “the Chinese Communist Party is stealing personal information from US citizens.” The ban is set to take effect on Jan 1, 2024, and the company would be fined $10,000 per violation if users were found using the app in the state. TikTok has announced that users will still be able to use the app and are working on a way to “defend the rights” of its users.
