MONTANA – A lawsuit over a 2023 Senate Bill that sought to ban TikTok in Montana has been jointly dismissed in federal court.
The Trump Administration, the Chinese government and TikTok reached an agreement in late January to sell American operations of the company to a joint consortium of companies that include Larry Ellison’s tech giant, Oracle, and Silver Lake, a venture capital firm. As part of the deal, ByteDance, which owns Tiktok, retains a 19.9% stake in the company, and its CEO will be on the American company’s board.
Questions had been raised about ByteDance’s connections to Beijing and what data was being collected by the Chinese government on Americans.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen has been vocal in his criticisms of TikTok, and the app was banned on state devices. The state legislature passed a law in 2023 banning the video social media app, which was quickly challenged. TikTok has said it was not storing American data in China.
Some small business owners in the state expressed frustration with the ban, saying it was harming their marketing. Violations of the right to free speech were also discussed in conjunction with the lawsuit. There was a stipulation in the bill that if TikTok was sold, it would void the bill.
“All parties agree that SB 419 is void because Section 4 has been triggered as a result of the transaction described in President (Donald) Trump’s Executive Order 14352, “Saving TikTok While Protecting National Security,” court documents said.
In a statement, Knudsen said that China was spying on Montanans and that the U.S. Congress agreed with the Montana Legislature.
“President Trump, with his years of business and negotiation experience, worked diligently and succeeded in finding the right American company to purchase TikTok and make sure that Montanans and Americans will no longer be spied on by a foreign adversary,” Knudsen said in a release. “Today’s dismissal ends years of litigation, brought on by TikTok, and will stop wasting taxpayers’ money.”
But more social media legislation could be on the way, which was spearheaded last session by Rep. Amy Regier, a Republican representing Kalispell. She sponsored House Bill 408, which would have added a filter on electronic devices. The bill stalled in the Senate’s judiciary committee after passing the House 82-19, but similar legislation is expected to be introduced in 2027.
Gov. Greg Gianforte has mentioned protecting children from social media twice this month — once at a state GOP kickoff event and a second time at Mountain States Policy Center event.
“The other thing that’s been a great concern to us is the impact of social media on our minors, young people. We’ve seen increased suicide, we’ve seen depression, we’ve seen addiction,” Gianforte said on Feb. 24 at the event. “So we’re working to get some protections for minors on social media.”
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