“To protect Montanans’ personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party, I have banned TikTok in Montana,” the governor tweeted.

To protect Montanans’ personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party, I have banned TikTok in Montana.

— Governor Greg Gianforte (@GovGianforte) May 17, 2023

“There are 200,000 TikTok users in Montana and 6,000 businesses that use TikTok,” according to a statement obtained by AP News from company spokesperson Jamal Brown.

Set to take effect Jan. 1, 2024, the bill is almost certain to face a potential legal fight with the company as a litany of questions arise over whether it restricts free speech and if the state can even enforce the law.

Despite it’s over 150 million American users, TikTok, owned by Beijing-based parent company ByteDance, has faced growing calls from bipartisan U.S. lawmakers and state officials for a nationwide ban over concerns about potential government influence, as the platform operates under Chinese law.

This includes fears the app will hand over American users’ data to the government, as Chinese companies can be asked to do under a 2017 national intelligence law. TikTok has repeatedly denied ever being asked to do so by the Chinese government and insisted it wouldn’t do so if asked.

Although Montana is the first state to prohibit downloads and usage of TikTok for everyone within its borders, Gianforte had banned the app from government devices in Montana earlier this year, one of many limited bans issued for government-owned devices and networks.

This batch of legislation follows in the footsteps of the Biden administration’s ban signed last year, which prohibits the federal government’s nearly 4 million employees from using the platform on all devices owned by its agencies.

Despite the likely challenges it will face in court and concerns from technology experts about how realistic enforcement would be, Gianforte praised the ban’s privacy protections from alleged intelligence gathering by China.

“The Chinese Communist Party using TikTok to spy on Americans, violate their privacy and collect their personal, private and sensitive information is well-documented,” Gianforte said in a news release, calling the law “the most decisive action of any state.”

His office also claimed in a news release that the Montana Department of Justice would enforce penalties. According to the text of S.B. 419, these penalties would include TikTok, Apple and Google facing fines of $10,000 for each violation and additional fines of $10,000 per day if it continues to violate the ban. Penalties would not apply to users.

The governor even proposed expanding the bill to other social media apps with ties to “foreign adversaries” to address some of the bill’s “technical and legal concerns.” This would include a number of apps owned by Russian or Chinese companies, including CapCut, Lemon8, Telegram, Temu, Pinduoduo and WeChat. But the legislature adjourned before taking up his amendments.

TikTok says the ban violates the First Amendment and the company is considering next steps “to defend the rights of our users inside and outside of Montana.”

“Gov. Gianforte has signed a bill that infringes on the First Amendment rights of the people of Montana by unlawfully banning TikTok, a platform that empowers hundreds of thousands of people across the state,” Brooke Oberwetter, a TikTok spokesperson, said in a statement to CBS News.

When the bill passed in March, Oberwetter told Insider via email that its “champions have admitted that they have no feasible plan for operationalizing this attempt to censor American voices.”

TikTok’s free speech allies include First Amendment groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

“With this ban, Gov. Gianforte and the Montana legislature have trampled on the free speech of hundreds of thousands of Montanans who use the app to express themselves, gather information and run their small business in the name of anti-Chinese sentiment,” Keegan Medrano, the policy director at the ACLU of Montana, said in a statement to Politico.

This law tramples on our free speech rights under the guise of national security and lays the groundwork for excessive government control over the internet.

Elected officials do not have the right to selectively censor entire social media apps based on their country of origin.

— ACLU (@ACLU) May 17, 2023

“Montanans are indisputably exercising their First Amendment rights when they post and consume content on TikTok,” Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in a statement to CBS News.

“Because Montana can’t establish that the ban is necessary or tailored to any legitimate interest, the law is almost certain to be struck down as unconstitutional.”

Montana's TikTok ban violates the First Amendment just like a federal ban would. It sets a dangerous precedent that can be weaponized against the press even more directly in the future. It's blatantly unconstitutional and the courts should strike it down. https://t.co/F7YFzaJYg7

— Freedom of the Press (@FreedomofPress) May 18, 2023

In 2020, the previous administration attempted to ban new downloads of TikTok and WeChat through a Commerce Department order, only to be blocked by several courts and thus, never took effect.

Despite a similar approach, the Biden administration faces some of the same hurdles. Its most recent attempt supports a bipartisan proposal to have the Commerce Department study the issue.

Apple and Google have not spoken out against the law, nor did they immediately respond to requests for comment, Reuters reported.

According to AP News, Oberwetter did not respond to questions regarding whether the company will file a lawsuit or pursue legal action.

As concerns on Capitol Hill and across states in the U.S. mount over the company’s operations, Montana will be monitored closely as a test for lawmakers to see how far they can go in banning the activities of a private entity like TikTok.