Business & Economy

In temporary reprieve, US court halts TikTok ban

San Francisco, Nov 12 (efe-epa).- The United States Department of Commerce issued a notice on Thursday halting a download ban on TikTok that was due to come into effect later that day.

In compliance with an Oct. 30 temporary injunction that had blocked a ban on the video sharing app in the country, it could continue to operate normally.

“The department is complying with the terms of this (court) order,” the text of the government said, and the ban would be halted “pending further legal developments.”

On Tuesday, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, ByteDance, asked the government for a 30-day extension past its Thursday deadline to prepare the sale of its popular app in the US.

The request was sent by ByteDance to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, arguing that Washington’s decision to force the sale of TikTok in the US was “arbitrary and capricious” and deprived it of due process under the law.

The company said that it has actively engaged with the US Committee on Foreign Investment for a year to address national security concerns, and in the past two months since Trump gave a preliminary approval to its proposal to satisfy those concerns, it had received no substantive feedback on solutions to finalize the agreement.

The Trump administration argues that it wants to prevent the data of Americans who use TikTok from being shared with the authoritarian government of China.

Those responsible for the app have always maintained that all their data centers are outside of China and that their data is not subject to Chinese law.

In August, Trump issued an executive order saying that TikTok would be banned if it did not sell its US business in 45 days.

Faced with the ultimatum, the US firms Oracle and Walmart agreed that they would acquire 20 percent of TikTok Global, a new US-based company that would direct the app worldwide. The deal is yet to be finalized.

TikTok assures that the negotiations to complete the agreement remain open. EFE-EPA

arc/tw

Related Articles

Back to top button