Last week, Montana’s governor, Greg Gianforte, signed a law banning the use of TikTok by state residents, the first of its kind in the United States. The law also bans the short-form video app from operating within the state and bans app stores from offering it within the state. Violating the law carries a potential fine of $10,000 per violation per day. The Republican governor says the ban is to protect residents from data harvesting by TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, on behalf of the Chinese government. The law isn’t set to go into effect until January 1, 2024, but that didn’t stop a group of five TikTok content creators and the company itself from filing a lawsuit against the state to have the statute thrown out. The plaintiffs are arguing that the ban infringes on their right to freedom of speech and that Montana doesn’t have the authority to regulate TikTok because the app is a matter of national security. |
In 2020, the U.S. State Department announced it was considering a ban on the app at the behest of then-President Donald Trump. Trump issued an executive order to ban TikTok that year, but it was overturned by the Biden Administration in 2021. Instead, President Biden ordered the Secretary of Commerce to investigate the app to determine if it poses a national security risk. On December 29, 2022, Biden signed the No TikTok on Government Devices Act into law as part of a larger government spending bill. While Montana is the first state to institute a statewide ban on TikTok, internet censorship seems to be taking hold in other parts of the country. TikTok has been banned by 34 state governments for state agencies, employees, contractors and anyone using a government-issued device or network. In practice, it means state employees and students at public schools and universities can’t use the app on their workplace computers or campus Wi-Fi networks, but they’re still able to access it using their personal devices and data plans. |
It’s possible that a larger piece of TikTok’s 150 million U.S. users could be facing similar bans in the future. Earlier this year, Utah passed a law banning the use of social media apps for residents under 18 without parental permission. Another recently enacted Utah law requires adult entertainment sites to verify a user’s age every time they access the site. In response to the new law, the popular adult entertainment website Pornhub blocked itself from being accessed in Utah. (Utah internet users reacted similarly to how internet users around the world react when faced with digital censorship by downloading VPNs in record numbers.)
The days of the internet as a wide-open digital frontier seem to be behind us. Governments are cracking down on apps and websites in the name of safety and national security. While fears over the misuse of personal information aren’t unfounded, censorship can be used to justify the erosion of our long-held internet freedoms over time. |
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