Mike Blake/Reuters
A federal judge on Thursday blocked Montana’s trailblazing state ban of TikTok from taking effect next year, preventing what would have been the United States’ first such prohibition of the video-sharing platform.
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy issued a preliminary injunction to stop the ban, saying it “oversteps state power” and “violates the Constitution in more ways than one.”
TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, sued Montana in May in an effort to stop the ban from going into force. The company argued that the ban would have violated First Amendment rights of both users and the company itself. Montana’s TikTok users also filed suit to prevent the ban, which had been passed by the state legislature, citing fears about Chinese spying and data protection concerns.