A federal judge in Montana has blocked what would have been the country’s first ban on the social media app TikTok. In his ruling on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy said the ban approved by Montana lawmakers earlier this year overstepped the powers of individual states. He said the measure “infringes on the Constitutional rights of users and businesses.” As KnowTechie reported back in May, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed into law Senate Bill 419, which effectively prohibited anyone in the state from downloading or using TikTok. At the time, Gianforte supported the ban by saying the social media app infringed on the privacy rights of its users and called into question its connection to the Chinese Communist Party. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a company based in China. State lawmakers claimed without evidence that TikTok and ByteDance conspire with government officials in China to pass along sensitive data related to its social media users. And while there have been incidents involving TikTok employees accessing private data of some U.S.-based users like journalists, the misappropriation of that data appeared to be for business-related purposes, not anything to do with the Chinese government. What did Montana’s TikTok ban do? Image: KnowTechie TikTok has been the target of government scrutiny in the past: Former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden didn’t see eye-to-eye on much, but they were united in their support of restrictions or an outright ban on the app at the federal level. While Trump was in…Federal judge blocks Montana’s proposed TikTok ban