It is not a surprise. TikTok, a subsidiary of the Chinese group ByteDance, filed a complaint on Monday May 22 against Montana, the American state which has enacted a law to ban the application next year. This ban “violates the Constitution of the United States in multiple ways”, says the company, and in particular the first amendment which guarantees “freedom of expression”, argues the document consulted by Agence France-Presse.
“TikTok exercises editorial judgment, a constitutionally protected right, to disseminate and promote content created by third parties,” the company’s attorneys say.
They also argue that the US state does not have the legal power to ban the app on national security grounds, a matter that falls under federal jurisdiction.
The complaint also refers to a principle of fairness. “Instead of regulating social media in general, the law bans TikTok, and only TikTok for punitive reasons (…) based on speculative concerns about data security and content moderation,” argue the authors. lawyers.
Many US lawmakers believe the platform of short, entertaining videos, frequented by 150 million Americans, allows Beijing to spy on and manipulate users. The platform has always denied these accusations.
Forerunner Montana
The Montana parliament adopted a text in mid-April which orders mobile application stores (App store and Google Play) to no longer distribute TikTok from January 1, 2024. A reflection which in any case seems to be shared by Washington. Congress and the White House are also considering similar bills.
The elected officials of Montana also accuse TikTok of harmful effects on the health of the youngest (addiction, depression). Some Democratic representatives have retorted that other social networks, such as Instagram, deserve to be regulated on all these subjects.
The powerful civil rights association ACLU has also accused the state of censorship.
“With this ban, Governor Gianforte and the Montana legislature are trampling on the free speech of hundreds of thousands of Montana residents who use this app to express themselves, find information, and promote their small businesses, on behalf of anti-China sentiment,” Keegan Medrano, an official with the local ACLU branch, said in a statement Wednesday.
Shortly after the governor of this northwestern US state, Greg Gianforte, signed the law into law, five TikTok users filed an appeal in federal court in Montana seeking the reversal of the decision.
