Montana becomes first state to pass bill completely banning TikTok

[FBaggins]

51. Only if the court hearing the case were made up of junior-high students

A 7th grade understanding of 1A says "you can't restrict what I say or how I say it" but that isn't a standard that the courts apply.

There's clearly a significant governmental interest and it can't reasonably be argued that the law does not leave "reasonable alternative avenues" for the same kinds of expression. All that leaves is whether or not the law is "narrowly tailored" enough to pass scrutiny - and it appears to be. The best argument that I've seen is that the law's "whereas" clauses include criticism of "dangerous content" and that government should not have any say in that realm... but it doesn't just say "dangerous content" - it goes on to list examples of that danger - none of which really impinge on protected speech.

Moreover - that's hardly the only justification given. The clauses re: China's ownership of the company are sufficient governmental interest in and of themselves and you can't get much more narrowly tailored than a law that bans the app and explicitly expires if the company is no longer owned by China.

There's an argument that national-security decisions belong at the federal level - and, of course, one re: whether or not it is good policy - but not really a 1A argument against the law.