On Apr 14, 2023 at 7:15:21 PM PDT, "RichA" <rander3128@gmail.com> wrote:

> Once a law is passed, you'd think it would take effect almost immediately.
> The governor could sign it into law today. Is this to protect idiots who are
> slow to find out something is illegal? Why not make this work the other way
> around too? If you make something legal that was illegal, how about a 9 month
> moratorium where you can still arrest people? Also, is this all about dense
> legal "wording?" Why not just say, "$10,000 fine if you have TikTok installed
> as an app on any electronic device in your control?"
>
> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65281881

Montana's Attorney General, Austin Knudsen defended this law in the NY Times,
and in doing so hilariously only gave more ammunition to the law's critics:

Mr. Knudsen, a Republican, said his team had received scores
of complaints from parents about TikTok content referring to
drugs, suicide, or pornography. As the state's legislative
session approached this year, his office began looking at the
idea of fully banning the app.

In other words, Knudsen, who will now have to defend this law in court, just
flat out admitted that he wrote this bill to shut down 1st Amendment-protected
communication. Talking about drugs, suicide, and pornography is all protected
1st Amendment speech, dude. Admitting that you're banning this app because you
don't like the content on it gives up the entire ball game.

On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 03:23:26 +0000, BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

>In other words, Knudsen, who will now have to defend this law in court, just
>flat out admitted that he wrote this bill to shut down 1st Amendment-protected
>communication. Talking about drugs, suicide, and pornography is all protected
>1st Amendment speech, dude. Admitting that you're banning this app because you
>don't like the content on it gives up the entire ball game.

Interesting - the Canadian federal government (and at least half the
provincial governments) are banning TikTok from all government owned
cell phones NOT for those reasons but rather due to the Chinese
security laws which give the Chinese state police (aka secret police)
access to all TikTok's user files on demand.

Note that they're only restricting it on government owned phones NOT
all Canadian cell phones generally as that would be overreach. As such
it doesn't fall under our version of the 1st Amendment.