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TikTok, which is owned by China's ByteDance and filed suit in
May, asked U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy to issue a
preliminary injunction to block the first-of-its-kind U.S. state
ban on several grounds, arguing it violates the First Amendment
free speech rights of the company and users.
TikTok Global Business Solutions President Blake Chandlee said
in a court filing the Montana ban "will cause significant and
irreversible harms to our business and our brand" and would harm
"relationships with advertisers and business partners across the
country and around the world."
TikTok also argues the ban is pre-empted by federal law because
it intrudes upon matters of exclusive federal concern and
violates the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause, which limits
state authority to enact legislation that unduly burdens
interstate and foreign commerce.
TikTok, which is used by more than 150 million Americans, has
faced growing calls from U.S. lawmakers for a nationwide ban
over concerns about possible Chinese government influence over
it. TikTok insists in its lawsuit it "has not shared, and would
not share, U.S. user data with the Chinese government, and has
taken substantial measures to protect the privacy and security
of TikTok users."
Chandlee said if the ban takes effect "we expect that additional
advertisers and business partners will pull back from working
with TikTok Inc (which is the entity that receives income from
U.S. advertisers, including in Montana)."
Montana could impose fines of $10,000 for each violation by
TikTok. The law does not impose penalties on individual TikTok
users.
TikTok estimates 380,000 people in Montana use the video
service, or more than a third of the state's 1.1 million people.
Former President Donald Trump in 2020 sought to bar new
downloads of TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat, a unit of Tencent,
and related transactions, which the companies said at the time
could have effectively barred U.S. use of the apps, but a series
of court decisions blocked the bans from taking effect.
TikTok's lawsuit names Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen,
who is charged with enforcing the law. Knudsen's office did not
immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Himani Sarkar, Robert
Birsel)
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