The video portal is the most successful non-US online platform in Western countries.
(Photo: Reuters)
Helena Montana becomes the first US state to ban the Chinese-developed social media app TikTok. “To protect the personal and private information of the people of Montana from the Chinese Communist Party, I have banned Tiktok in Montana,” Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte tweeted Wednesday after signing the bill into law, which the state House of Representatives passed in April was.
The new rule would ban app stores from offering the application starting January 1, 2024, and TikTok would no longer be allowed to operate as a business in the northwestern state. For every day that the app is still available, app providers would have to pay a $10,000 fine. Users face no fines. Anyone who already has the app on their own device is not affected. TikTok did not initially respond to the decree.
TikTok, which belongs to the Chinese Internet group Bytedance, is under strong political pressure in the USA. President Joe Biden’s administration has already banned the app from government employees’ phones. The background is concerns that Chinese authorities and secret services could collect information about Americans via TikTok and influence them politically. At the end of March, TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew had to answer questions in the US Congress. He met with distrust and rejection from both Republican and Democratic MPs.
Ban across the US not ruled out
Montana, with a population of just over a million, is the first state to have such a far-reaching law. Lawsuits against the Tiktok ban are expected. Critics see, among other things, the right to freedom of expression at risk. The actions of the authorities in Montana are therefore considered a test for a possible ban throughout the USA. Technically, however, such a blockade should be easy to circumvent.
TikTok has more than a billion users and is the most successful non-US online platform in western countries. The company rejects all suspicions and emphasizes that it does not see itself as a subsidiary of a Chinese company. Bytedance is 60 percent owned by Western investors and the company is based in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean. Critics counter that the Chinese founders held 20 percent of the control thanks to higher voting rights and that Bytedance has a large headquarters in Beijing.
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