The governor of Montana (USA), Republican Greg Gianforte, signed a law on Wednesday banning the use of the Chinese application TikTok, becoming the first state in the country to restrict the popular social platform.
Gianforte reported the move on his Twitter account: "To protect the private and personal data of Chinese Communist Party Montanese, I have banned TikTok" in the state, he wrote.
Montana's state legislature last month passed a bill aimed at banning the platform, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, from the mobile devices of all its residents.
Greg Gianforte, governor of Montana, signing the order banning TikTok in the state. Garrett TurnerAP
Montana's ban is the toughest approved so far by a U.S. territory and goes beyond the veto implemented by the federal government and half of the 50 states in the country so that public officials can not have TikTok on their mobiles.
Several sectors, including the FBI, members of Congress and state authorities, have expressed concern about the possibility that TikTok could be used by Beijing for espionage, since the application is owned by a company based in China.
China has security laws that could force tech companies to share data with its intelligence services, but TikTok and other companies argue that those concerns are meaningless and that they have implemented several measures to protect their users' data.
As reported in March by US media, the government of Joe Biden has threatened ByteDance, owner of TikTok, with banning the social network throughout the United States if it does not sell the shares they have in the popular application.
TikTok has about 100 million users in the United States and has quickly become one of the most popular social networks in the world, especially among teenagers.
- Tik Tok
- United States
- China
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