The Montana First Amendment will not be violated by an app that sells ads to people seeking information about food, drugs, and other illegal activities

But Ms. Oberwetter said on Wednesday, after the law was signed, that the ban infringed on the First Amendment rights of people in Montana and that the company would keep “working to defend the rights of our users.” She said on Thursday that a federal ban in 2020 did not hold up to legal scrutiny and that Montana did not have a workable plan for enacting the ban.

The federal government and more than two dozen states have banned TikTok on government devices in recent months. Lawmakers and intelligence officials have said TikTok, because of its ownership, could put sensitive user data into the hands of the Chinese government. They have also argued that the app could be used to spread propaganda. TikTok says it has never given user data from the U.S. to the Chinese government.

There isn’t a hard legal precedent for banning TikTok. The ban is likely to be challenged immediately. Although it has not said it will file a lawsuit, TikTok says that the rule is an egregious government overreach. The internet trade association NetChoice, which represents companies like Meta, Twitter, and Google, has issued a statement calling the bill “plainly unconstitutional.” NetChoice has sued states including Texas, Florida, and California over other bills that regulate online speech, so Montana may well be next.

Some of these challenges have caused harm in the real world but others gained infamy mostly due to people warning about them. “Cooking chicken in NyQuil,” for instance, was a viral joke that only began trending more broadly when the Food and Drug Administration amplified it with a bulletin. TikTok is also far from the only place where people encourage each other to do stupid things online. The First Amendment protects speech that is distasteful or dangerous, and Montana lawmakers aren’t banningYouTube or Facebook because of that.

Throwing objects at cars, taking too much medication, lighting a mirror on fire and attempting to extinguish it using only one’s body parts are some of the things that could be done.

The Montana Internet Bill of Attainder has a First Amendment, but it doesn’t violate the Second Law or the First Amendment

This has been debated for a long time, and still nobody knows. The Montana bill’s introduction claims that “TikTok gathers significant information from its users, accessing data against their will to share with the People’s Republic of China.” But while there’s a strong argument TikTok could share such data, we don’t know if that’s actually happening. And that probably won’t change until journalists, intelligence officials, and / or whistleblowers release new details.

NetChoice claims that the bill of attainder, or a regulation that accuses a certain entity of a crime and punishes them without a trial, is unconstitutional. It also contends that the law violates the First Amendment, “restricting Americans’ ability to share and receive constitutionally-protected speech online.”

Ms. Krishnan thinks that it is likely that there will be a lawsuit by TikTok. “Because this is such a dramatic and unconstitutional incursion into the First Amendment rights of Americans, we are certainly thinking through the possibility of getting involved in some way.”

This is a huge step towards a new type of internet where states put digital barriers in the name of safety and security. But the law also won’t kick in for months, if it comes into effect at all. Here is what is happening.

NetChoice, a trade group that counts TikTok as a member and has sued in the past to block state laws targeting tech companies, also said in a statement that the ban violated the Constitution. Krista Chavez said that NetChoice did not have any plans to challenge the law.

Ramya Krishnan, a lawyer at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said the Constitution protected Americans’ right to access social media platforms of their choosing. Ms. Krishnan said that Montana needed to prove that its privacy and security concerns were real and that there were other ways to address them.