WASHINGTON: Montana is set to become the first American State to ban the Chinese-owned media giant TikTok from personal devices.
According to the BBC, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed the restriction into law on Wednesday. It is due to take effect from January 1.
The video-sharing platform said the restriction “infringes on the First Amendment Rights of the Citizens of Montana.”
TikTok has come under scrutiny from authorities around the world over concerns that data could be passed to the Chinese government.
Gianforte, a Republican, told lawmakers that the wider ban would further “our shared priority to protect Montanans from Chinese Communist Party surveillance.”
TikTok company said in a statement that it was used by “hundreds of thousands of citizens” in Montana.
It added, “We want to reassure Montanans they can continue using the TikTok app to express themselves, earn a living, and find community as we continue working to defend the rights of our TikTok users inside and outside of Montana.”
TikTok has expected to challenge the legislation in the courts.
The previous month, lawmakers in Montana passed the bill banning the TikTok app on personal devices by a vote of 54 to 43.
The law would make it illegal for app stores to offer TikTok but doesn’t ban citizens who already have the TikTok app from using it.
Montana, which has a population of just over 1m, restricted the Tik Tok app on government devices the previous December.
TikTok said it has 150m American users. Although the Tik Tok user base has expanded recently, it is still popular with teenagers and users in their 20s. There are concerns across the United States political spectrum that the TikTok app could be a national security risk.
TikTok is owned by ByteDance – a Chinese company. In March, a congressional committee grilled TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew about whether the government of China could access user data or influence what Americans see on the Tik Tok app.
Shou repeatedly said it would never spy on Americans – despite admitting that workers had used the TikTok app accounts of journalists to obtain information about them.
