TikTok has filed a lawsuit challenging Montana’s recently announced ban of the video sharing app. The social media firm argued that the new law, which is set to come into effect on 1 January next year, is an unconstitutional violation of free speech. The company, which is owned by China-based ByteDance, said the attempt to block users from accessing TikTok is based on “unfounded speculation” that the Chinese government could access their data. The lawsuit by TikTok itself follows one filed last week by five content creators who made the same arguments, including that the state of Montana has no authority to take action on matters of national security. Both lawsuits were filed in federal court in Missoula. Republican Govenor Greg Gianforte signed the bill last Wednesday and the content creators’ lawsuit was filed hours later. TikTok has not shared and would not share US user data with the Chinese government and has taken measures to protect the privacy and security of its users, including storing all US user data in the United States, the company stated in its complaint. Some lawmakers, the FBI and officials at other agencies are concerned that the video-sharing app could be used to allow the Chinese government to access information on US citizens or push pro-Beijing misinformation that could influence the public. Chinese law compels Chinese companies to share data with the government for whatever purposes it deems to involve national security. TikTok says this has never happened. “TikTok is spying on Americans. Period,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, whose office drafted the bill, told a legislative committee in March. Knudsen’s office has said they expected lawsuits and were prepared to defend the new law. The federal government and about half the US states, including Montana, have banned TikTok from government-owned devices. Montana’s new law prohibits downloads of TikTok in the state. It would fine any “entity” – an app store or TikTok – $10,000 per day for each time someone “is offered the ability” to access the social media platform or download the app. The penalties would not apply to users. Even if the law comes into force in 2024, security experts have warned that it would be nearly impossible to prevent TikTok users from accessing the app. Oded Vanunu, head of products vulnerability research at the cyber security firm Check Point, said last week that it would be difficult for any single state to ban the app, as easily available technologies like virtual private networks (VPNs) would allow users to bypass any geolocation blocks. Additional reporting from agencies Read More TikTok ban in numbers: Charting the controversial rise of the world’s most popular app Schoolboy almost dies from swallowing magnets for TikTok challenge Woman shares honest review of New York City apartment TikTok mom slammed after making 5-year-old son run in 104 degree heat

Rishi Sunak is being slammed by his climate advisers for making net zero harder to achieve in Britain

The Biden administration is reducing the types of semiconductors that American companies will be able to sell to China, citing the desire to close loopholes in existing regulations announced last year.

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Jack Dorsey has said it is “critical to preserve the open internet” after Twitter owner Elon Musk announced controversial new “rate limits” for viewing tweets on the social media platform. The Twitter co-founder and former chief said “running Twitter is hard” after widespread backlash against Mr Musk’s temporary limits on the number of tweets people can read on the microblogging site. He, however, expressed hopes that the platform would build on “censorship-resistant open protocols” that would be “good for all, and critical to preserve the open internet”. Thousands of Twitter users took to the platform to report problems with the site over the weekend, with complaints of inability in retrieving tweets, missing timelines and disappearing followers. Reports of outages began flooding Down Detector, peaking on Sunday and extending to Monday. The backlash started after Twitter declared on Saturday that verified accounts were being limited to reading 6,000 posts a day. Mr Musk later said “rate limits” were increasing to “8,000 for verified, 800 for unverified & 400 for new unverified”. He reasoned that the limits were being imposed to “address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation”. Many users expressed their frustration with the new move as they got a notification that said, “Sorry, you are rate limited. Please wait a few moments then try again”. Industry experts were also baffled at such a move by a social media company to put people off its platform, especially as Twitter has battled with retaining advertisers on the platform ever since Mr Musk took over last November. “Never have I seen a social network try so hard to put people off using a platform and to completely curtail any potential future for its business,” Matt Navarra, a social media consultant and industry analyst told PA, adding that the move was “yet another crazy decision by Elon Musk”. Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, said the new move could be “catastrophic” for Twitter’s ad business, that has already reeled from dwindling revenues. The company even roped in former NBCUniversal advertising executive Linda Yaccarino to be its new chief to repair relationships with advertisers who pulled away from the platform. The latest “reading limits”, according to Lou Paskalis, the founder of advertising consultancy AJL Advisory, “signals to the marketplace that he’s not capable of empowering her to save him from himself”. Mr Dorsey acknowledged that running Twitter was “hard”, adding that he trusted the team was “doing their best under the constraints they have”. “It’s easy to critique the decisions from afar... which I’m guilty of... but I know the goal is to see Twitter thrive. It will,” he said. It remains unclear how long the restrictions will last, as thousands continue to report about outages on the platform. Twitter did not reply to requests for comment as it had earlier this year changed its policy for interacting with reporters. Read More Twitter limits number of tweets people can read in a day, Elon Musk announces Pete Buttigieg blames severe weather for Fourth of July travel chaos Explosive devices and ‘Molotov cocktail-style object’ detonated in Washington DC Twitter limits number of tweets people can read in a day Heart transplant woman’s daughter twice saved her life using Alexa iPhone users urged to check their photo library amid fears they could be deleted

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xQc was part of Twitch's top tier and his ardent followers appear to be following him en masse to Kick after his megadeal with the platform

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HANOI Vietnam's Prime Pham Minh Chinh has visited the headquarters of Nvidia and Synopsys, encouraging them and other