In a quote mistakenly attributed to Voltaire, the famous British writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall said “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

I’m all for freedom of speech, and generally have a Libertarian laissez faire approach to the government’s involvement in limiting businesses. One state has been grappling with how to regulate TikTok, going as far as to attempt to ban the app state-wide, but they’ve run into some issues with the Dr. Evil-esq plan. A federal judge has blocked Montana’s TikTok ban, which would have been the first of its kind in the United States.

To understand what’s going on here you have to go back to May of 2023 when Governor Greg Gianforte signed into law the SB 419 bill  presenting it as a way to help “our shared priority to protect Montanans from Chinese Communist Party surveillance.”

Well ok then.

TikTok is pleased as you can imagine, but this isn’t the end of the issue. So how did we get here in the first place? The TL;DR of it is Montana of all places wanted to be the 1st U.S. state to ban TikTok, which is owned by the China-based tech giant ByteDance. Oh, and there’s that nagging rumor/fact that the Chinese government may-or-may not have access to all of TikTok’s Chinese and U.S.-based users. So there’s that. 

So earlier this year U.S. lawmakers raised questions about the relationship between the Chinese government and the app’s parent company ByteDance when they grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew during a congressional hearing. These layers, who had no idea what a TikTok was until they asked their grandkids, all the sudden were concerned that the Chinese Communist Party may be able to access the data of U.S. citizens. Nothing gets American’s blood pumped quite like lawmakers painting the Chinese as poised to steal your data, even if they aren’t completely wrong on that point.

During the Trump administration there was even talk about “forcing” ByteDance to sell their U.S. subsidiary known as TikTok, but the company floated a new plan to try to reassure the national security concerns with their “Project Texas” initiative (named I imagine in homage to The Alamo, but I digress). This plan was intended to ensure that the data of U.S. citizens remains in the country via a partnership with enterprise tech giant Oracle who would store all of TikTok’s U.S. based user’s data in their own datacenter located in, you guessed it, Texas. 

This plan went nowhere, as did the plan to force ByteDance to sell TikTok. So all of this has emboldened Montana to take matters into their own hands and try to ban the app in their state, but they failed. 

TikTok has rapidly increased its revenue generation in the past few years, generating $9.4 billion in 2022. I’m guessing this might have a little something to do with how they are funding their lobbying efforts to prevent their app from being banned. 

So for now teenagers all across Montana can doom scroll TikTok until their heart’s are content.

Federal judge blocks Montana’s TikTok ban, which would have been the first of its kind