Montana becomes first state to ban TikTok in the U.S.

Fear of being spied on by China has led to Montana to block the Tik Tok app. The state’s governor, Republican Greg Gianforte, signed a bill into law on Wednesday that bans the use of short video platformbecoming the first state in the country to restrict the popular network.

Gianforte reported the measure on his Twitter account: “To protect the private and personal data of the Chinese Communist Party Montanans.I have banned TikTok” in the state.

Montana’s state Congress last month passed a bill aimed at banning the platform, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, in the mobile devices of all its residents.

Montana’s ban is the toughest ban ever passed by a U.S. territory and goes beyond the veto which has been implemented by the federal government and half of the country’s 50 states. so that public officials cannot have TikTok on their cell phones.

Several quarters, including the FBI, members of Congress and state authorities, have expressed concern about the possibility that TikTok could be used by Beijing for espionage work.as the application is owned by a company based in China.

The Asian country has laws on security that could force technology companies to share data with its intelligence servicesbut TikTok and other companies argue that such concerns are meaningless and that they have implemented several measures to protect their users’ data.

As reported in March by U.S. media outlets, the U.S. government of Joe Biden has threatened ByteDance, owner of TikTok, with banning the social network across the United States if it does not sell the shares they hold in the popular app.

TikTok has about 100 million users in the U.S. and has quickly become one of the most popular social networks in the world, especially among teenagers.