Sept 18 (Reuters) - A group of 18 state attorneys general said on Monday they backed Montana’s effort to ban Chinese-owned short video app TikTok, urging a U.S. judge to reject legal challenges ahead of the Jan. 1 effective date.

    • sparky@lemmy.federate.cc
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      1110 months ago

      Yes but the owners of the OS and app stores are, which is I believe the original commenter’s point. And the text of the bill is not “TikTok you shall pull your app”, it’s “Apple you shall disable the App Store listing”.

      • @SheeEttin@lemmy.world
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        510 months ago

        Oh, I see. But not just downloads, it also prohibits operation. https://leg.mt.gov/bills/2023/billpdf/SB0419.pdf

        But not only do they have an argument on first amendment grounds, given that the company and product are specifically named and targeted, I think this would be considered a bill of a attainder, and explicitly unconstitutional.

      • @CaptObvious
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        210 months ago

        It seems more like “These substances are now illegal to sell, possess, or use.” Right or wrong, they made it stick for a very long time.

        • Beej Jorgensen
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          410 months ago

          Data gets a lot closer to “speech” than a substance does. This will be interesting to watch, for sure.