President Trump’s administration was scheduled to ban U.S. users from downloading the popular short-form video sharing app TikTok on Monday, but TikTok has escaped the fate of the lawsuit after a federal judge today issued a last-minute ruling to stay the politically charged ban. The ruling comes after a court in Pennsylvania rejected a lawsuit to suspend the ban.
According to the AFP news agency, the US federal court blocked the government’s injunction, resulting in TikTok’s temporary escape from the blockade. Federal District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington, D.C., temporarily blocked the injunction at Shakespeare’s request. The White House claims that Shakespeare’s parent company, China ByteDance, poses a national security threat to the United States because of its ties to Beijing authorities.
The brief order issued by the federal district court in Washington, D.C., did not give the judge’s reasons for the ruling, the report said.
The Trump administration sought to ban U.S. users from downloading Jitterbug starting at midnight on the 28th, but allowed users to continue using it until November 12, after which it would be banned altogether. The judge rejected Jitterbug’s request to delay the November 12 ban.
The court’s ruling on Sunday represents a temporary win for the 100 million-user U.S. social networking platform, but the Washington district court has yet to consider the merits of the legal arguments on whether Jitterbug should remain in the United States.
According to Shakespeare, even a temporary injunction would be disruptive, not only causing irreparable harm to the company by impeding its growth, but also hurting TikTok’s business reputation.
In a rare telephonic hearing on Sunday, Nicholls heard arguments about the free speech and national security implications of Trump’s order to ban the Chinese app TikTok.
According to John Hall, an attorney representing Shakespeare, the ban is “punitive” and would also block a public forum used by tens of millions of people in the United States. Prior to the hearing, Jitterbug’s attorneys said in a written brief that the ban was “arbitrary and capricious” and would “undermine security” by blocking updates and fixes to the app. Shakespeare also said that the ban was unnecessary because the parties had already begun negotiations on a restructuring of TikTok’s ownership to address the national security concerns raised by the Trump administration.
According to AFP, the Trump administration’s lawyers argued that Trump has the right to take national security actions, adding that the ban is necessary given Jitterbug’s relationship with the Chinese government through its parent company, Byte Jump. In its briefing, the Trump administration called ByteHopping a “mouthpiece” of the Chinese Communist Party, adding that ByteHopping is “committed to promoting the political ideals and messaging of the Chinese Communist Party. The Trump administration asserted: “The President has determined that (China’s) ability to control this information poses an unacceptable threat to U.S. national security and foreign policy.”
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