Montana’s Legally Dubious TikTok Ban Could Set a Precedent
While politicians in the House and Senate were busy pursuing their own half-baked effort to ban TikTok nationally, Montana broke new ground and voted to ban TikTok on all devices within its state. The first-of-its-kind law bans app stores like Apple’s and Google’s from offering downloads of the massively popular short-form video platforms. App stores found to have violated the law can face a $10,000-per-day fine. TikTok has already filed a suit seeking to overturn the ban on First Amendment grounds as have a group of Montana creators who rely on the app for their livelihoods.
NetChoice general counsel Carl Szabo previously told Gizmodo he believes the first-of-its-kind state-wide TikTok ban is a clear violation of TikTok’s First Amendment rights and amounts to a bill of attainder laws that criminalize a specific person or individual and punishes them without a trial. Bills of attainder are blatantly unconstitutional.
