Montana has banned the Chinese social media app, TikTok as Greg Gianforte signed a bill into law on Wednesday.
The app will now cease operating in the state to protect residents from alleged intelligence gathering by China.
“To protect Montanans’ personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party, I have banned Tiktok in Montana”, Gianforte tweeted after signing the bill.
The new rule prohibits app stores from offering the video-sharing app from Jan. 1, 2024 and prevents TikTok from operating as a business in the state.
For every day the social media platform is still available, app providers would have to pay a 10,000 dollars fine.
Users do not face a fine and those who already have the app on their own device are not affected.
TikTok did not initially respond to the legal change but later issued a statement saying that the new law “infringes on the First Amendment rights of the people of Montana by unlawfully banning TikTok”.
Lawsuits challenging the ban based on the right to freedom of expression are expected.
Owned by Chinese company Byte Dance, TikTok has already been banned on government-issued devices in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain and the U.S., amid cyber security concerns.
The app has more than a billion users worldwide and is widely used in the U.S. and Europe.
It is fueling fears that Chinese authorities and secret services might use the app to collect information from users or to spread influence although the company has rejected such allegations.
