A US judge has issued a temporary injunction on Sunday, preventing a ban on the future downloads of the video making TikTok app. The Chinese-owned app had faced being blocked from Android’s play store and Apple’s App Store.
Meanwhile, the existing American users would have been able to use the app, but they would not have been able to re-download it if they deleted the app from their mobile phones. The US District Court for the District of Columbia’s judge, Carl Nichols, issued a temporary injunction on the request of the TikTok.
However, the court’s opinion was sealed, meaning that the reason behind the decision was not released. In response, the social media app said that it was pleased with the judge’s decision and added that it would keep defending its human rights.
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TikTok had earlier argued that banning the app from the Apple and Android app stores would have violated the fifth and first amendment of the US constitution. It maintained that preventing thousands of users from using the app unlawfully impinges freedom of speech.
Not only that but it also stated that giving the company its right to due process would have been violated by not giving it a chance to defend itself. In turn, the Trump administration’s lawyers described the app’s parent company as the mouthpiece of the Chinese regime.
The American court ruling comes just days after another Chinese messaging app – WeChat – that also faced a ban by the incumbent administration was given its last-minute reprieve by the US courts.
However, the long-term fate of the Chinese social media apps in the US still remains unclear. Bytedance, a Chinese company, currently owns that app, and the US administration has maintained that the involvement of the company poses a serious national security threat.
However, Bytedance has categorically denied all the allegations leveled by the US government, maintain that the American users’ data is stored in Singapore and the US. It further added that the data is not subject to Chinese law.
After being threatened with a ban, the company said that it had agreed on a deal with retail giant Walmart and database company Oracle to take up to a 20 percent stake in the app in a new spin-off the company called TikTok Global.
However, the President maintained that he would not accept any agreement that did not involve the Chinese company ceding control to the two American companies. On Monday, TikTok said in a statement that talks on the deal were still ongoing.
The social media app has nearly 700 million users worldwide and 100 million active users across the US. Meanwhile, it has also claimed that a temporary ban from the American authorities would seriously harm its business.
For now, the American government has issued executive orders targeting the app, first stops it from being distributed through android and apple stores, and the second is far more reaching for the social media giant. On November 12, the second-order will come into force, it aims to shut the app down outright across the US if Trump’s national security concerns are not addressed.
