Montana’s Governor’s Changes To TikTok Ban Bill Would Ban All Social Media Entirely

We’ve already talked about Montana’s extraordinarily unconstitutional “ban TikTok” bill that raises a huge number of constitutional issues. Lots of individuals and organizations pointed this out to governor Greg Gianforte (who came to office as a former tech exec of an internet company, and was supposed to be someone who understand the internet).

Montana’s Governor’s Changes To TikTok Ban Bill Would Ban All Social Media Entirely

Bill to Ban Tik Tok Would Give Government Sweeping Powers to Crackdown on Tech

Bill to Ban Tik Tok Would Give Government Sweeping Powers to Crackdown on Tech

A person who violates the act could be fined up to $1 million or punished with up to 20 years in prison. The broad and vague definitions in the legislation caused many to wonder if people could be handed such harsh punishments for using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to get around future government censorship that could come as a result of the bill.

A spokesperson for Warner insisted that the legislation wasn’t designed to target individual users and pointed to the language that says someone “must be engaged in ‘sabotage or subversion’ of American communications technology products and services, creating ‘catastrophic effects’ on US critical infrastructure, or ‘interfering in, or altering the result’ of a federal election, in order to be eligible for any kind of criminal penalty.”

But the bill will give the Commerce Secretary the authority to deem what is considered “sabotage or subversion” or any of the other threats listed above. The legislation has grave implications for civil liberties and could be used against any individuals or tech and media companies the Biden administration, or any future administration would want to target.

Previously:

Tik-Tok bills could dangerously expand national security state

The Myopic Focus On TikTok Privacy Issues Remains Kind Of Weird + Facebook-Hired PR Firm Coordinated Anti-TikTok Campaign To Spread Bogus Moral Panics

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The Myopic Focus On TikTok Privacy Issues Remains Kind Of Weird

Related:

Facebook-Hired PR Firm Coordinated Anti-TikTok Campaign To Spread Bogus Moral Panics

The NATO to TikTok Pipeline: Why is TikTok Employing So Many National Security Agents?

If TikTok is such a threat, why did the Biden Administration train TikTok influencers to propagandize others about Russia’s special military operation?! Even though TechDirt makes some good points (privacy laws and the xenophobia), it seems like they—and Buzzfeed—are just creating another moral panic!