TikTok Users Live to Dance Another Day; Trump’s Download Ban Blocked

Written By @cabbagepatchgrl

On August 6, Donald Trump signed an executive order against the TikTok app, demanding its ByteDance owners sell to a company in the United States or risk being banned. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

The White House expressed national security concerns in its order, claiming the app is sharing user information with the Chinese government, which TikTok maintained is false.

The ban was set to go into effect at midnight on Sunday, but after a midday hearing, Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for D.C., granted an injunction against the order, halting Trump’s TikTok ban temporarily. Although the injunction gives the app more time to close a deal, the judge declined TikTok’s request to extend the November 12 deadline by which the app’s U.S. operations must be owned by a company based in the United States.

Nevertheless, a spokesperson for the app said it was pleased with the judge’s decision to grant an injunction. “We will continue defending our rights for the benefit of our community and employees.“ a spokesperson added. “At the same time, we will also maintain our ongoing dialogue with the government to turn our proposal, which the President gave his preliminary approval to last weekend, into an agreement.”

Investors such as Oracle and Walmart have received approval from Trump to purchase TikTok. However, they are currently still clashing with ByteDance itself over the deal and whether the Chinese-based company will continue to have control over the app.

On Sunday, TikTok Interim head Vanessa Pappas tweeted, “I am very happy that the court has granted an injunction preventing the implementation of the TikTok ban that would have prohibited new users to download the app.” She said, “We will continue to seek to protect the rights of our users, partners, artists, employees, businesses, and creators.”

The Commerce Department agreed to comply with Sunday’s ruling. TikTok can currently still operate as usual until the case has a full hearing, which has not yet been scheduled.