TikTok on Monday filed a lawsuit in a United States court in Montana against a law enacted last week that prohibits the application’s use in the state, which has vetoed it.
The popular social network, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, said in documents filed in Montana federal court that the ban is “unprecedented” and “unconstitutional.”
“We are filing a lawsuit against the unconstitutional ban on TikTok in Montana to protect both our business and hundreds of thousands of users,” the company wrote on its Twitter account.
In the lawsuit, attorneys representing the social network, which has more than 150 million users in the United States, assert that the state law violates the First Amendment to the country’s constitution, which protects freedom of expression. does, and that it interferes with federal affairs. ,
Montana Republicans, who control both houses of the state Congress and the governor’s office, are leading the move and accuse TikTok of collecting user data with the intent of providing it to the Chinese Communist Party.
In its lawsuit, TikTok defended itself against these allegations, which it called “baseless speculation”, and said that it “has not and will not share user data with the Chinese government.”
They also assured that “significant measures have been taken to protect the privacy and security of those who use it”.
The lawsuit is in addition to another lawsuit filed last week by several “influencers” against the ban on TikTok in Montana.
The new law will take effect on June 1 and will penalize mobile application services (such as the Apple App Store or Google Play) that allow users in Montana to download TikTok with fines of at least $10,000.
Montana’s ban is the toughest ever approved by a United States territory and goes beyond vetoes that have been enacted by the federal government and half of the country’s 50 states to prevent public officials from having TikTok on their cell phones.
The FBI, members of Congress and state officials have raised concerns that TikTok could be used by Beijing for spying, as the app is owned by a Chinese company.
