Two weeks ago, the Montana state government passed a law outlawing TikTok from operating in the state. Now, Governor Greg Gianforte is attempting to change the law so it applies to all social media companies.
While the previous bill singled out TikTok, owned by ByteDance, the proposed changes would shift the language of the legislation, replacing any mention of TikTok with social media.
"A social media app may not operate within the territorial jurisdiction of Montana [if user data is] provided to a foreign adversary or a person or entity located within a country designated as a foreign adversary," the new amendment reads.
While TikTok's parent company is located in China, the company has maintained that it has no ties to the Chinese government. Several tech experts have noted that the data TikTok collects is no more invasive or a security threat than the data collected by American-based companies.
Free speech advocates have decried the Montana bill for its attempted censorship, even before the Governor's proposed changes. Ari Cohn, a free speech counsel at TechFreedom, told NBC that the amendment is “deeply stupid and an exercise in completely missing the point," and that it will likely destroy any legal case the previous version had.
“The Montana Legislature was attempting to cut users off from an entire forum for expression, purportedly over national security concerns that were vague and generalized," Cohn said.
The previous version of the law, which is expected to go into effect at the beginning of 2024, barred Google and Apple stores from hosting the app, threatening a $10,000 per day fine if they do not remove it.
Caitlin Vogus, deputy director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, added that the law would incentivize companies to gather even more data from their users.
"Ironically, a bill that is supposed to be about protecting user privacy may instead encourage apps to collect location data so they can make sure that they're steering clear of this prohibition if they are, in fact, banned in Montana," she said.
