Montana lawmakers passed legislation on Friday that would ban TikTok from operating in the state or being downloaded on personal devices.
The state house voted 54–43 to enact the bill, known as S.B. 419, which the state senate previously approved in a 30–20 vote, the Montana Free Press reported. The bill now heads to Governor Greg Gianforte’s desk for his signature.
Under the measure, app stores are prohibited from offering TikTok for download in Montana.
The initiative in Montana comes amid hot debate in Congress over the merits of pending federal legislation to ban TikTok, called the RESTRICT Act. While it would greatly curtail the technology, the bill would also grant sweeping powers to the federal government to surveil Americans, its critics claim. At the federal level, TikTok is already banned from devices owned and operated by the federal government.
Violations of the bill by app stores are punishable by potential fines of $10,000 per day, but individuals will not be penalized for using the app on their devices, CNN noted.
“The governor will carefully consider any bill the legislature sends to his desk,” Brooke Stroyke, a spokesperson for Gianforte, told the outlet. TikTok was already banned from state government devices in December.
“The bill’s champions have admitted that they have no feasible plan for operationalizing this attempt to censor American voices, and that the bill’s constitutionality will be decided by the courts,” TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter told CNN, suggesting that litigation to challenge the bill could be on the way.
“We will continue to fight for TikTok users and creators in Montana whose livelihoods and First Amendment rights are threatened by this egregious government overreach,” she said.
Opponents of Montana’s bid have objected to it on many grounds, including that it infringes on citizens’ rights to free expression and access to information and sets a dangerous precedent for the banning of businesses from the state.