The U.S. Department of Commerce had ordered last Friday (September 18) that the downloading of WeChat (WeChat International) and TikTok (Jitterbug Overseas) would be banned starting at midnight on Monday (September 21, 2020). However, the two bans will not take effect for the time being for different reasons, respectively.
A U.S. federal judge issued a temporary ruling on Sunday that prevents Trump from asking companies like Apple and Google to remove WeChat from mobile app stores.
In a ruling, Judge Buehler said that WeChat users had raised serious challenges in a lawsuit against restrictions on their free speech under the First Amendment, and that the government had not presented sufficient evidence that banning WeChat would address the government’s concerns about China’s threat to U.S. national security.
The judge’s temporary ruling also prevents the Commerce Department from prohibiting U.S. companies or individuals from conducting transactions with WeChat.
The Commerce Department had urged the judge not to block the government ban, saying that doing so would frustrate the President’s determination to protect national security in the best way possible.
WeChat has more than one billion users worldwide. It is estimated that there are approximately 19 million WeChat downloads in the United States, with users primarily in the Chinese community.
In a statement, the American WeChat Users Association, which filed the lawsuit, praised the judge’s ruling as an important and hard-won victory for millions of WeChat users in the United States.
In addition, the Commerce Department said Saturday it would delay for a week the implementation of an order that would have banned downloads of TikTok, the overseas version of Shakespeare, starting Monday. President Trump said Saturday that he supports in principle an agreement between U.S. company Oracle and Wal-Mart to acquire TikTok and take control of its U.S. operations.
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