Montana Governor Greg Gianforte, a Republican, signed into law this Wednesday banning the use of TikTok, making it the first US state to completely restrict the popular Chinese social network.
Gianforte reported the decision via his Twitter account: “To protect the private and personal information of citizens of Montana from the Chinese Communist Party, I have banned TikTok” in the state.
TikTok is just one app linked to foreign opponents. Today I directed the Chief Information Officer of the state to ban from the state network any application that provides personal information or data to foreign adversaries. pic.twitter.com/92Im6D9Jgx
— Governor Greg Gianforte (@GovGianforte) May 17, 2023
To protect Montanans’ personal and private information from the Chinese Communist Party, I have banned TikTok in Montana.
— Governor Greg Gianforte (@GovGianforte) May 17, 2023
Montana’s Congress last month passed a bill that aims to ban the platform, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, from the mobile devices of all its residents.
Montana’s ban is the strictest ever passed by a U.S. territory, going beyond the ban that the federal government and half of the country’s 50 states have put in place preventing officials from having TikTok on their electronic devices.
Various sectors in the US, including the Federal Police (FBI), members of Congress and state authorities have expressed concern about this social network and warned that TikTok could be used by Beijing for espionage purposes as the application is owned by a company based in China in China.
The Asian country has security laws that can force tech companies to share data with its intelligence agencies, but TikTok and other companies argue that these concerns are absurd and that they have taken several steps to protect their users’ data.
In March, the government led by Joe Biden threatened ByteDance with foreclosure in the United States if it does not sell the shares it owns in the popular social network.
TikTok has about 100 million users in the United States and has quickly become one of the most popular social networks in the world, especially among teenagers.
Source: DN
