Madrid, May 19. (Press Europe) –
A group of TikTok content creators has sued the US state of Montana over its recent ban on the video app, amid concerns about the protection of user data it provides.
These are five people residing in the state who use TikTok as an integral part of their businesses or communities, and who will be directly and negatively affected by the ban.
According to the complaint, which has been reached by CNN, the creators compare TikTok to any other type of media, and claim that banning it constitutes an offense against free speech: “Montana can’t stop its residents from viewing or posting on TikTok, any more than you can ban the Wall Street Journal because who owns it or because of the ideas it publishes.”
In addition to accusing the state’s governor, Greg Gianforte, of violating his freedom of speech, they also claim that the ban violates other rights, unlike the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which, among other things, provides for an obligation to establish a fair order. Trial before depriving citizens of freedom.
For its part, the state attorney general’s office, Austin Knudsen, said through a statement, “We were anticipating a legal dispute and are ready to defend the law.”
Gianforte signed the law banning access to or downloading of this app on Wednesday, thus becoming the first country to take this action. He said he was making the decision to protect the data of Americans in Montana “from the Chinese Communist Party.”
The controversial law, which came as some lawmakers have called for a nationwide ban on the app, marks another step in a ban on TikTok — Chinese parent company ByteDance — after security concerns grew in the West. of the app as a Trojan horse to promote pro-Chinese propaganda or collect user data.
Chinese authorities have decried that, after a series of vetoes in recent months by several countries – the US, the UK and the EU – in the organs of public administration, there is a hidden political intent without any kind of real technological justification.
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