First US state to ban Tiktok G7 countries owe poor countries $13 trillion

Montana becomes the first US state to ban the China-developed social media app Tiktok. “To protect the personal and private information of Montana residents from the Chinese Communist Party, I have banned Tiktok in Montana,” Republican Governor Greg Gianforte tweeted Wednesday after signing the bill, which passed the state House of Representatives in April. has adopted. used to be.

The new rule would prohibit app stores from offering the application from January 1, 2024, and Tiktok would no longer be allowed to operate as a business in the northwestern state. App providers must pay a fine of $10,000 for each day that the app is still available. Users do not risk fines. Anyone who already has the app on their own device will not be affected. TikTok initially did not respond to the decree.

TikTok, which belongs to the Chinese internet group Bytedance, is under strong political pressure in the US. President Joe Biden’s administration has already banned the app from government employees’ phones. The background is the concern that the Chinese authorities and secret services could collect information about Americans through Tiktok and influence them politically. At the end of March, Tiktok boss Shou Zi Chew had to answer questions in the US Congress. He was met with distrust and rejection from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

Montana, with a population of just over a million, is the first state with such a far-reaching law. Lawsuits against the Tiktok ban are expected. Critics see, among other things, the right to freedom of expression in danger. The actions of the authorities in Montana are therefore seen as a test for a possible ban across the US. Technically, however, such a block should be easy to circumvent.

Tiktok has over a billion users and is the most successful non-US online platform in Western countries. The company dismisses all suspicions and emphasizes that it does not see itself as a subsidiary of a Chinese company. Bytedance is 60 percent owned by Western investors and the company is based in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean. Critics object that the Chinese founders had 20 percent of the control thanks to higher voting rights and that Bytedance has a large headquarters in Beijing. (sda/dpa)