Montana banned TikTok. Now these people are fighting back

Lisa Bonos looks at how a social media ban in ‘Big Sky Country’ has sparked a nationwide debate over freedom of speech

Carly Ann Goddard, a stay-at-home mum in a small town in Montana, makes a living through endorsing brands’ products on TikTok (Mike Clark/The Washington Post)

Carly Ann Goddard, a 22-year-old stay-at-home mum, drives an hour past grazing cattle, sheep and horses to buy shopping, a testament to her isolation in a rural pocket of eastern Montana.

But when she uploads a short video to her TikTok account, which she does several times a week to chronicle life as a rancher’s wife, she reaches an audience of 99,000 – more people than inhabit nine of her state’s 10 largest cities and 660 times the population of the town where she lives.

That audience allows Goddard an opportunity that wouldn’t be available otherwise in her part of Montana. As an influencer on TikTok, she earns between $2,000 and $6,000 (around £1,600 and £4,900) a month for endorsing the merchants who sell the items she talks about in her videos. She says she’s developed friendships and business partnerships that would have been impossible without the app.