TikTok is suing the state of Montana to prevent the U.S. government from imposing a ban on national security concerns, saying the move is both “illegal” and “unconstitutional.”
The social media app, owned by China’s ByteDance, filed a lawsuit in federal court on Monday, days after Montana’s governor signed an unprecedented bill that would ban app stores that allow Download TikTok in the state. It will also ban the app from operating in the western state, which has a population of about 1.1 million.
The proposed ban comes amid concerns from governments and regulators around the world that TikTok’s ties to China could allow the app to collect data on its users for espionage purposes. TikTok, in particular, has become a flashpoint of escalating tensions between the U.S. and China, where it has 150 million users, with Washington calling on the short-video app to be spun off from its Chinese parent company or face a federal ban.
In Monday’s lawsuit, TikTok argued that Montana’s law violated its First Amendment right to free speech and that the so-called national security concerns it used to justify the ban were “the sole concern of the federal government.”
The company also said the ban violated U.S. rules on foreign and interstate commerce and was effectively an unconstitutional “disenfranchisement act” — legislation that convicts a group without trial.
“These unconventional and unprecedented steps taken by the state are based on nothing more than unfounded speculation,” it said in the lawsuit.
Under Montana law, TikTok and app stores like Apple and Google face fines of $10,000 per day if they don’t comply.
Last week, a group of TikTok creators filed their own lawsuit challenging the law on First Amendment grounds.
Even after TikTok tried to distance itself from its parent company by spending more than $1.5 billion on “Project Texas,” a free-speech court battle aimed at protecting user data and corporate restructuring plans to shield content from Chinese influence.
However, talks on the deal stalled, and earlier this year the U.S. government threatened to ban TikTok if its Chinese owners did not sell their stake — a move Beijing has publicly opposed.
Former President Donald Trump tried to ban the app in the US in 2020, but the attempt was stopped by a court. TikTok was recently banned from government devices in the US, UK, Canada and the EU.
“We are challenging Montana’s unconstitutional TikTok ban to protect our business and the hundreds of thousands of TikTok users in Montana,” a TikTok spokesperson said Monday. “We believe our legal challenge will prevail, based on extremely strong precedent and facts.”