TikTok Ban in Montana Blocked by Court as Free Speech Threat (3)

Montana’s ban of TikTok was blocked by a federal judge in a closely watched challenge to the first statewide measure prohibiting the general public from using the wildly popular app.

TikTok argued that the ban, which aimed to bar residents from downloading the app beginning next year, would trample free-speech rights based on a misguided view that Chinese ownership of the platform poses a national security threat.

With a law enacted in May, Montana became the first state to completely bar TikTok’s operations after targeted bans focusing on government devices and networks cascaded across the country last year. The European ...