A U.S. District Court on Thursday blocked Montana’s governor from banning the popular social media app TikTok, further extending a streak of legal defeats for the Trump administration and its allies seeking to curtail the app’s use in the United States.
The court sided with TikTok, which had sought to block the executive order issued by Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte, who had argued that the Chinese-owned app presented a security risk.
The ruling is the latest in a string of legal defeats for the Trump administration and other government entities that had sought to limit access to the app. Just a few weeks ago, a federal judge blocked President Trump’s order to ban the app from app stores in the U.S. Similarly, several other states have failed in attempts to block the app, including Arkansas, Kentucky, and Florida. In each case, judges have cited the First Amendment’s protection of free speech as a reason the ban could not be enforced.
