Montana TikTok Ban Called ‘Paternalistic’ by Perplexed Judge (2)

A federal judge appeared unconvinced and at points confused by the Montana government’s reasoning for a statewide ban of TikTok Inc.'s short-video social media platform, during a Thursday hearing addressing the company’s request to stop the ban from coming into effect while its challenge proceeds.

Judge Donald W. Molloy in the US District Court for the District of Montana pressed state Solicitor General Christian Corrigan about why the government hadn’t pursued more targeted alternatives to regulating the Chinese government’s access to American users’ data on the platform owned by Bejing-based ByteDance Inc. than an outright ban. TikTok and five US ...