Montana becomes the first US state to ban TikTok
Governor Greg Gianforte has signed a bill that bans TikTok in Montana, making it the first US state to do so. He says that the decision was taken in order "to protect Montanans' personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party".
A month ago, the state legislature passed a bill that requires app stores to block the service, and having been signed by Gianforte, the law will come into force next year. The law bans TikTok from operating in Montana, with daily fines of $10,000 in case of violations. TikTok is expected to fight the ban with the claim that it infringes on users' First Amendment rights.
Lithuanian government warns consumers not to buy new Chinese phones and to throw out old ones ASAP
The Defence Ministry of Lithuania has issued a warning that people should stop buying phones from China and should "get rid of those already purchased as fast as reasonably possible".
The extraordinary advice comes after a government report found that handsets produced by Xiaomi and Huawei include a feature to detect and censor certain words and phrases. On the blacklist are terms such as "free Tibet", "long live Taiwan independence" or "democracy movement", and while the censoring functionality was disabled for the European market, there is the potential for it to be remotely activated at any time.