A federal judge has stopped a US state’s landmark ban on TikTok from going into effect, in an important test case for the widespread political backlash that has grown in the country against the Chinese-owned video sharing app.Montana’s Senate Bill 419, which was signed by the state’s Republican governor Greg Gianforte in May, would have gone into effect in January and imposed a ban on downloads of the app.
On Thursday, Judge Donald Molloy granted TikTok’s request for a preliminary injunction after the ByteDance-owned app challenged the legislation in court, denouncing it as an unconstitutional infringement of its rights. Some users of the app also joined the legal challenge.
While the law would only have applied to Montana — a western state with a population of just 1.1mn — the case has reflected a broader global debate around security concerns with the app, which has drawn attention from governments and regulators concerned that TikTok’s ties to China may allow it to harvest user data for espionage purposes.