The “Tik Tok” platform has filed a lawsuit to overturn a new ban imposed on it by the US state of Montana, the company said on Monday.
“We are challenging Montana’s unconstitutional TikTok ban to protect our business and the hundreds of thousands of TikTok users in Montana,” TikTok wrote on Twitter.
“We are confident that our legal challenge will prevail based on very strong precedents and facts,” he added.
Montana became the first US state to ban the video-sharing app when Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the bill into law on Wednesday.
The new law bans app stores from offering the video-sharing app from January 1, 2024, and bars TikTok from operating as a business in the state.
For every day that the social media platform is available, app providers must pay a fine of $10,000. Users will not be penalized and those who already have the app on their own devices will not be affected.
Five TikTok content creators living in the state filed a similar lawsuit hours after the bill was signed into law.
TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has already been banned from government-issued devices in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain and the US amid cybersecurity concerns.
The app, used by more than 1 billion people worldwide and widely used in the US and Europe, has raised concerns that Chinese authorities and secret services could use the app to collect information from users or spread influence. The company has denied such allegations.
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