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According to Reuters, National Public Radio (NPR) and other media reports, a district judge in the US state of Montana issued a preliminary ruling on Thursday (November 30), preventing Montana's statewide ban on short video social platform TikTok from taking effect.

On May 17, the governor of Montana signed a ban on TikTok, planning to ban it statewide on January 1, 2024, making the state the first in the United States to completely ban TikTok. Five TikTok creators who live in Montana filed a lawsuit on the same day, accusing the state of seeking to "exercise powers that the state does not have regarding so-called national security issues." They say the ban violates their First Amendment rights.

Reuters recently reported that U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Montana made the ruling. Molloy said the Montana ban on TikTok "oversteps state authority and violates users' constitutional rights."

Molloy was skeptical of Montana's ban during a hearing on the lawsuit in October, NPR said. He said at the time that while state officials suggested TikTok was "stealing user data," TikTok users were voluntarily providing their personal data. He argued that state officials were justifying Montana's ban with "paternalistic arguments."

In response to the latest ruling on Thursday, NPR said it means that the TikTok ban in Montana, which was scheduled to take effect on January 1, is now suspended. The Wall Street Journal, which also reported the news, claimed that TikTok received a "reprieve" in Montana and will wait for the outcome of a lawsuit TikTok previously filed.

Short video social platform TikTok on May 22 filed a lawsuit against the US state of Montana, alleging that a decree banning the download of TikTok software in the state signed by the governor at the time was illegal, and asked the court to overturn the ban. "The State of Montana enacted these extraordinary and unprecedented measures based on nothing more than baseless speculation," according to the Associated Press reported on the 23 of the same month, in a 62-page complaint, TikTok accused Montana's ban in four aspects of illegal, These include violations of the First Amendment's free speech clause, federal preemption in the legal system, the commerce Clause of the Constitution, and the Inalienable Rights Act. Montana "cites nothing" to support the "data breach" claim, the complaint said, and the speculation "ignores the reality that Plaintiff does not and will not share U.S. user data" and TikTok's efforts to take "substantial steps to protect user privacy and security."

 She stressed that the US side has so far failed to provide evidence to prove that TikTok threatens US national security, but has repeatedly made "presumption of guilt" and unreasonable suppression of relevant companies, which is a hegemonic and hegemonic act to generalize the concept of national security and abuse state power to suppress foreign companies. "We urge the US side to respect the principles of market economy and fair competition, stop unreasonably suppressing foreign companies, and provide an open, fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for foreign companies to invest and operate in the US."