The elected officials of this American state have judged that the platform of the Chinese group ByteDance allows Beijing to spy on and manipulate users.
Montana passed a law on Friday to ban TikTok from 2024, the elected officials of this American state judging that the platform of the Chinese group ByteDance allows Beijing to spy on and manipulate users.
The text, which prohibits mobile application stores (Apple and Google) from distributing TikTok, will be difficult to apply, but shows that the pressure is not weakening in the United States against the platform frequented by 150 million Americans.
“Stand up to the Chinese”
“It’s time to stand up to the Chinese and ban TikTok”, launched Thursday the representative Brandon Ler after an indictment against China, which “wants our data and our intellectual property”, and an application dangerous for “health and safety, especially of the youngest”.
“TikTok allows and promotes dangerous challenges, like throwing objects at moving vehicles or consuming too many drugs,” he added.
TikTok has denied these accusations for years. Heard in March by a parliamentary committee of Congress in Washington, the boss of the company, Shou Chew, put forward the means implemented to store all the data of American users only in the United States.
“This law constitutes a shocking violation of the rights of the people of Montana in terms of freedom of expression” and a “disastrous precedent”, reacted Vanessa Pappas, the director of operations of TikTok, after a vote of the Senate of Montana in favor of the ban in early March.
