Montana announced on Tuesday that it was appealing a November ruling by a US judge to overturn the state’s first-of-its-kind ban on the usage of the short-video sharing app TikTok.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen has filed a notice of appeal with the Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals, reported Reuters.
Montana’s ban was supposed to go into effect on January 1, but US District Judge Donald Molloy ordered a preliminary injunction on November 30 to prevent the ban on the Chinese-owned app from going into force, saying Montana’s law “violates the Constitution in more ways than one” and “oversteps state power.”
According to Molloy, Montana attempted to exercise foreign policy authority held by the federal government, and the state’s action was overly broad, noted the report.
TikTok has been restricted on government-owned devices by several states and the federal government, but only Montana has attempted to ban the application outright.
Ariel Ben Solomon is the Growth and Strategy manager at Ecomhunt. He is the host of the Ecomhunt Podcast. Can be followed on Twitter at @ArielBenSolomon
