TIKTOK AND 5 CONTENT CREATORS ASK FEDERAL JUDGE TO BLOCK MONTANA FROM BANNING APP

TikTok Inc. and a group of five content creators who are suing the state of Montana over its first-in-the-nation law to ban the video-sharing app are now asking a federal judge to block implementation of the law while the case moves through the courts and before it takes effect in January.

The separate requests for preliminary injunctions were filed Wednesday in federal court in Missoula. The cases challenging the law were filed in May and have since been consolidated by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy.

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen had the bill drafted over concerns — shared by the FBI and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken — that the app, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, could be used to allow the Chinese government to access information on U.S. citizens or push pro-Beijing misinformation that could influence the public. TikTok has said none of this has ever happened.

The motions for injunctions make the same arguments as the cases against the state — that the ban is an unconstitutional violation of free speech rights and that the state has no authority to regulate foreign affairs.