(San Francisco) A US federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the ban on the use of TikTok in the state of Montana which was to come into force in January 2024, ruling that the very popular short video sharing application had all the chances of winning his current case.
Judge Donald Molloy imposed an injunction on the ban on the Chinese application, extremely popular with young people, until the case, initially filed by TikTok in May, is judged on the merits.
Mr. Molloy said it was likely that TikTok and its users would prevail in the case, as he said Montana’s law not only violates free speech rights, but also runs counter to because foreign policy issues are the exclusive responsibility of the federal government.
“The current record leaves little doubt that the Montana Legislature and Attorney General were more interested in China’s ostensible role in TikTok than in protecting Montana consumers,” Donald Molloy said in his decision .
Montana enacted a law last May to ban TikTok, a subsidiary of the Chinese tech group ByteDance. The text requires Apple and Google to no longer offer TikTok in their mobile application stores from January 1, 2024, under penalty of a fine of $10,000 per day per violation.
The social network had filed a legal action to overturn this ban, arguing that it violates the First Amendment of the American Constitution guaranteeing freedom of expression.
TikTok has been in the crosshairs of American authorities for several months, with many officials believing that the short and entertaining video platform allows Beijing to spy on and manipulate its 150 million users in the United States.
The company has always denied these accusations.