By: Jingwei Zhao

TikTok has given many people a chance to post content and earn revenue without needing to make long-form videos, one of whom is Carly Ann Goddard. She posts to TikTok several times a week and has reached over 99,000 viewers. This impressive number of followers has enabled the monetization of her account, and she makes between $2,000 and $6,000 a month. She has developed friendships with other creators and found new business partners, which would have been impossible if not for the app. But for all her success, she faces a new setback: Montana has recently become the first state in the U.S to ban TikTok, leaving Goddard and many other content creators worried for their careers on the platform and facing a new setback.

When Goddard eventually reached success on the social media platform, she felt like she found her purpose. “I wake up every morning, loving that I do this, loving that I get to stay home with my son. … It’s built my confidence,” said Goddard.

Montana legislators have concerns about the app: since the company is in China, they can track the personal data of Americans as well as promote anti-American propaganda. However, Goddard and other Montanan TikTok creators find this unjust under the First Amendment. She is contemplating moving to a different state, and has received comments calling her a communist or accusing her of ruining Montana, despite her wholesome content. Now, with four other content creators by her side, Goddard has decided to file a lawsuit against the state.

At first glance, Montana does not seem like the type of state to ban something like TikTok, but they have their own reasons. Despite their smaller population and little presence of the latest technology, a few of the problems they have experienced during Covid-19 have caused them to make a few changes. During the pandemic, digital nomads would flock over to Missoula and Bozeman, two of the major cities in the state. This led to an increase in property prices as well as a lack of population in places locals previously felt to be small towns.

The state was also once purple in politics, with Jon Tester, one of their two senators, being a democrat and in office since 2006. However, Montana has recently become redder, with Republicans gaining more control over the state’s legislature, leading to the second time in nearly a century in which the GOP has such a majority.

Montana has seen many of the national political debates play out locally, including TikTok. When a Washington Post poll asked Americans on their thoughts about the app, 41 percent supported the ban, 25 opposed it, and 34 percent stayed neutral. However, a March analysis conducted on homes and lattes found that people in Montana cared more about the inflation of house prices than TikTok.

Still, the subject of the social media platform has divided the state. Patti Medicinehorse, a paramedic in Big Horn County, found her grandchildren constantly on the app, and she worries that they might try one of the dangerous challenges. Medicinehorse thought, “We try to teach them to think and to be responsible and respectful, and they get caught up in what everyone else is doing and they don’t think about the danger.”

Truck driver Mike Hampton believes that his grandchildren are completely glued to their screens, especially on TikTok. One of them once walked right into a tree in the backyard without even looking up to check where they were heading.

Others, like Goddard, oppose the ban. “At first, obviously, I didn’t really know that I would impact people,” she said as her son toddled outside a general store in Hardin, chasing his shadow in the morning sun. But people soon started telling her things like, “Oh, I hope that I can be the mom you are someday,” or “I can’t wait to be the wife that you are. I want to have that life.”

Before, her family could only afford to go grocery shopping just once a month, but now they can go “whenever [they] want.” Plus, brands such as Caraway Cookware and Baby Bjorn have been trying to partner with her, and that would all go down the drain if the state bans the app. Goddard said, “I don’t think I can go back to being just paycheck to paycheck.”