Washington(CNN) Montana became the initial US state on Friday to pass legislation banning TikTok on all individual devices, sending a bill to Gov. Greg Gianforte prohibiting TikTok from operating inside state lines and barring app retailers from supplying TikTok for downloads.

The legislation marks the furthest step but by a state government to restrict TikTok more than perceived safety issues and comes as some federal lawmakers have known as for a national ban of TikTok.

Lawmakers in Montana’s Property voted 54-43 to give final approval to the bill, recognized as SB419. Really should Gianforte sign the bill, it would take impact in January. But the legislation could promptly face important legal challenges.

The legislation especially names TikTok as a target of the bill, and outlines prospective penalties of $ten,000 per violation per day. The penalties would also apply to any app retailer located to have violated the law. Person customers of TikTok, meanwhile, would not be penalized for accessing TikTok.

“The governor will cautiously take into account any bill the legislature sends to his desk,” mentioned Brooke Stroyke, a spokesperson for Gianforte. In December, Gianforte banned TikTok from state government devices and the following month urged the Montana University Program to comply with suit, which it did.

In a statement, TikTok hinted at prospective legal action to oppose the bill.

“The bill’s champions have admitted that they have no feasible program for operationalizing this try to censor American voices and that the bill’s constitutionality will be decided by the courts,” mentioned TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter. “We will continue to fight for TikTok customers and creators in Montana whose livelihoods and Initially Amendment rights are threatened by this egregious government overreach.”

Quite a few governments worldwide, such as in the United States, have utilised their authority more than official devices they manage to restrict TikTok from smartphones, computer systems and WiFi networks. But these restrictions do not extend to individual devices.

US officials have broadly expressed fears the Chinese government could potentially get access to TikTok user information by means of its hyperlinks to TikTok’s parent, ByteDance, and that such facts could be utilised to advantage Chinese intelligence or propaganda campaigns. There is so far no public proof the Chinese government has in reality accessed the individual facts of TikTok’s US customers or utilised that information to influence them. But FBI Director Christopher Wray has told Congress that “we’re not positive that we would see quite a few of the outward indicators of it taking place if it was taking place.”

The US government has known as for TikTok to be spun off from its Chinese owners, whilst TikTok has mentioned that it can address the national safety issues by erecting a “firewall” about US user information, component of an initiative it calls Project Texas.

The program has not deterred TikTok’s critics, nonetheless. Far more than half of US states have clamped down on TikTok in some style, and Friday’s Property vote in Montana underscored the breadth of assistance for limiting TikTok on even non-government devices.

But the future of Montana’s legislation is uncertain. NetChoice, a technologies sector group that counts TikTok as a member, mentioned Friday that SB419 violates the US constitutional prohibition against so-known as “bills of attainder,” or legislation that seeks to punish a particular person without the need of trial.

“This move from the Montana legislature sets a risky precedent that the government can attempt to ban any enterprise it does not like without the need of clear proof of wrongdoing,” mentioned Carl Szabo, NetChoice’s vice president and common counsel. “The US Constitution clearly forbids lawmakers from passing laws to criminalize a precise person or enterprise. Gov. Greg Gianforte must veto this clearly unconstitutional law.”

Design and style it For Us, a coalition of youth activists pushing for modifications to platform regulation, lamented that the perspectives of web natives had been not reflected in the bill.

“We think that social media can be very good for young folks if they are developed for us,” mentioned Zamaan Qureshi and Emma Lembke, the group’s co-chairs. “Bans like this one particular forgo a genuine chance to proactively address kids’ security and privacy issues on these platforms.”

A group representing app developers mentioned Friday the bill could encourage governments to legislate on an app-by-app basis, building a patchwork of laws that would “weigh heavily on modest app corporations.”

“When it may well start with TikTok, it clearly will not finish there,” mentioned Morgan Reed, president of The App Association, which receives much more than half its funding from Apple.

Other civil society groups have alleged SB419 violates Montanans’ Initially Amendment rights to cost-free expression and access to facts. This week, a joint letter to state lawmakers led by the American Civil Liberties Union argued that there is a higher constitutional bar for government restrictions on speech.

“SB 419 is censorship — it would unjustly reduce Montanans off from a platform exactly where they speak out and exchange concepts daily, and it would set an alarming precedent for excessive government manage more than how Montanans use the web,” the letter study.

The legislation also references the presence on TikTok of “risky content material” and “risky challenges,” language that Lynn Greenky, a Initially Amendment scholar and associate professor at Syracuse University, mentioned raises an immediate “red flag” triggering stricter constitutional scrutiny.

“Only in exceptional situations will content material-primarily based restrictions be constitutionally permissible below the Initially Amendment,” Greenky mentioned. “Surely, the Montana government has a compelling state interest in defending the well being, welfare, and privacy of its citizens, but the statute is so vague that it is practically unenforceable. A vague statute is, by definition, not narrowly tailored, and as such it will wither below Initially Amendment scrutiny.”