Group of TikTok Creators Sue Montana to Stop Statewide Ban

thewrap.com:

the lawsuit argues that Montana’s government is attempting to assert powers reserved for the federal government, and that the ban is a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S.

constitution.“The Act attempts to exercise powers over national security that Montana does not have and to ban speech Montana may not suppress,” the suit says.“Montana can no more ban its residents from viewing or posting to TikTok than it could ban the Wall Street Journal because of who owns it or the ideas it publishes,” the suit also says.Filed by Samantha Alario, Heather DiRocco, Alice Held, Carly Ann Goddard and Dale Scout in the U.S.

district court in Montana, the lawsuit names Austin Knudsen, Montana Attorney General, as defendant. Representatives for the state of Montana didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from TheWrap.When signing the ban into law on Wednesday, Gov.

Greg Gianforte said he did so, “to protect Montanans’ personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party.”Montana previously banned TikTok from being installed on government devices, just as the U.S.