Hot take: That TikTok 'ban' panic in Montana last year was way overblown

I live in Bozeman and remember last May when everyone was freaking out about the Montana law banning TikTok. My neighbor literally started a petition to move to Wyoming because he thought his side hustle was dead. But here's the thing I kept noticing other people getting wrong - the state never actually enforced it. I looked up the court filings myself after seeing a local news report and found out the judge blocked it like a week before it was supposed to start. It got struck down on First Amendment grounds, but everyone was acting like the app just vanished from their phones overnight. A buddy of mine who runs a small shop still posts his woodworking clips every Tuesday and nothing happened. So why do people keep saying Montana banned TikTok when the ban never even took off? Has anyone else had a friend swear a ban was real only to check and find out it was a dud?

2 comments

2 Comments

wesley8315d ago

Except the political stunt part is exactly why people were freaking out though, right?

the_jason15d ago

Man, tell me about it. I'm over in Missoula and my buddy who sells those custom leather journals online was dead set on packing up his whole shop because of that law. I had to send him the literal court order where the judge smacked it down. It was wild, people were treating it like it was already enforced when the legal fight hadn't even really started. He still posts his stuff on TikTok every week and gets orders from all over the country. That whole thing felt more like a political stunt that got way more attention than it deserved.