Tiktok boss Shou Chew during a hearing in Washington last week
Image: Bloomberg
The Tiktok network is banned in Montana. The reason: China could spy on users. Critics from left and right see it differently. The United States is at odds over how to respond to Chinese influence.
AMontana is the first US state to enact a law that will block the Tiktok social network for the state’s 1.1 million residents from next January. Google and Apple will then have to pay $10,000 a day in fines if they make the app available to Montana residents. The ban is seen as a test for more far-reaching bans on the popular platform; whether and how the new law is to be enforced and whether it will withstand legal challenges is an open question. Five users have already filed suit against the law.
150 million Americans use Tiktok
The background to the ban is concern that the Chinese government is spying on the users of the app or manipulating them with disinformation, which has also led to Tiktok blockades elsewhere. The parent company of the network, which is used by 150 million mostly young people in the USA, is the Chinese company Bytedance. According to Chinese law, Bytedance is obliged to “support, assist and cooperate with the security work of the state”.
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