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Cheerleaders for the Minnesota Vikings check the footage after recording a TikTok video at a fan interaction event.
A woman records a video clip near the logos for Chinese video apps Bilibili and Douyin, the Chinese version of Tiktok, at a booth for Chinese telecom provider China Telecom at the PT Expo in Beijing, Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2021. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Cheerleaders for the Minnesota Vikings check the footage after recording a TikTok video at a fan interaction event.
A woman records a video clip near the logos for Chinese video apps Bilibili and Douyin, the Chinese version of Tiktok, at a booth for Chinese telecom provider China Telecom at the PT Expo in Beijing, Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2021. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
There is a push to ban popular social media platform TikTok in Montana.
The Montana effort mirrors pushes in other states and at the federal level that look to restrict TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech firm ByteDance, in the backdrop of terse U.S. relations with China.
State and congressional prohibitions, however, could face significant legal challenges from TikTok and free speech advocates who could argue First Amendment and censorship violations.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen backs the push to prohibit TikTok in the state legislature citing the platform’s Chinese ownership and concerns about privacy protections.
State Sen. Shelly Vance, R-Belgrade, is spearheading a measure (Senate Bill 419) prohibiting “operation of TikTok in Montana by the company and users” and restricting internet providers and mobile application stores from offering the platform, according to a news release from the GOP lawmaker and attorney general.
Internet providers and companies that violate the ban would face a $10,000 fine per day for each violation, according to the Montana measure.
A major threat?
“It’s time to ‘Stop the Tok’ in Montana. The application is a major threat to our national security,” Vance said in a statement released by Knudsen’s office. “We know the Chinese Communist Party can use it to spy on Americans by tracking locations and keeping other personal information. It also promotes dangerous content to young people and threatens the health and safety of Montanans. TikTok has run out the clock. It’s time to hold them accountable.”
TikTok has more than 1 billion users worldwide — including 138 million active users in the U.S., according to Wallaroo Media, a Provo, Utah-based research group. That makes it the third largest social media platform behind only Facebook (2.9 billion), YouTube (2.2 billion) and Instagram (1.4 billion).
TikTok has video social media posts related to pets, food, wellness, travel, comedy, fashion, cosmetics and sometimes, like other platforms, more salacious content from users.
Conservatives, in particular, have aimed at the Chinese-owned platforms with state and federal prohibition proposals.
Some of the political efforts against TikTok are bipartisan.
U.S. President Joe Biden is restricting TikTok from federal smartphones and computers. Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte has also banned the platform on state government devices mirroring pushes by other governors (including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis). Montana’s public universities are also restricting TikTok along with public colleges in Wisconsin, Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas.
At the federal level, there are measures in Congress to also corral TikTok by restricting downloads and financial transactions.
Legal challenges
The restrictions will likely face legal challenges, potentially on censorship grounds.
“The United States has a strong culture of free speech and free expression. Although the U.S. government has limited or prohibited forms of speech in the past (e.g., to prevent physical harm, fraud, or intellectual property infringement), it must meet a very high legal bar to prove that this measure is tailored and necessary. It is not clear that a blanket ban on TikTok would solve the vague national security threats that politicians have cited, and so I would expect TikTok to appeal any potential attempt to ban it,” said Caitlin Chin, a fellow specializing in technology regulations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Chin said TikTok starting filing legal challenges and were granted a pause when former President Donald Trump issued an executive order in 2020 aimed at constraining the popular app and forcing a sale to an American owner.
“The moral of the story is that in a democratic country, governments can’t just ban forms of speech or expression without justification — they must meet a high bar to prove why this company is different than others, and why its specific (not vague) national security risks outweigh constitutional free speech protections,” Chin said.
She also questions whether bans focused on TikTok will improve online privacy.
“Even if TikTok is prevented from operating in the United States, there is nothing to stop other mobile apps from collecting the exact same types of data — geolocation, biometrics, communications, and more — and sharing it with data brokers, which could in turn share it with foreign government agencies,” Chin said.
She also said there will also be economic fallouts for influencers and brands who generate income and sales via the smartphone app.
“The biggest beneficiaries from a TikTok ban would be its direct competitors— Meta, YouTube, Twitter, and Snapchat — as former TikTok users might direct their online engagement elsewhere,” Chin said.
Social media rivals
U.S.-based social media companies have been under scrutiny for their banning of Trump and other conservatives as well as their restricting of posts related to the coronavirus pandemic shutdowns and vaccines as well as Hunter Biden’s business dealings during President Biden’s time as vice president during the Obama administration.
But those same social media giants also have plenty of political clout. Meta — the parent of Facebook and Instagram — spends $20 million annually on lobbying and donated $9.7 million to candidates the last two election cycles, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Alphabet Inc. (which owns Google and YouTube) spent $13.2 million on lobbying in 2022 and donated $42 million to U.S. candidates in the last two campaign cycles, according to CRP.
Twitter has a less robust government relations effort spending $1.3 million on lobbying in 2022 and donating 1.2 million during the 2020 and 2022 elections.
ByteDance Inc. has also been increasing its U.S. lobbying efforts — allocating $5.4 million towards those efforts in 2022, according to CRP.
TikTok did not respond to a request for comment on the Montana bill, but defended its privacy protection efforts in a Feb. 22 statement.
“We welcome legitimate review of our platform and know that staying ahead of next-generation cyber threats requires us to continuously strengthen the security of our platform and collaborate with industry-leading experts to test our defenses,” the company said in the statement, adding that it does not collect user’s device data (including from other accounts).
Originally published on belgrade-news.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.
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