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- Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler in San Francisco on Saturday issued a preliminary injunction at the request of the WeChat Users Alliance of America.
- The court order argued that the bans violate the free speech rights of millions of Chinese-speaking Americans who depend on WeChat within the US.
- The United States has claimed that WeChat is a threat to national security because Tencent is intertwined with the Chinese Communist Party.
The Trump administration’s restrictions on the Chinese-owned “super app” WeChat were suspended by a judge a day before it took effect.
Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler in San Francisco on Saturday issued a preliminary injunction at the request of the United States’ WeChat Users Alliance, which had argued that bans on the app would violate the free speech rights of millions of Chinese-speaking Americans who They primarily rely on WeChat for their communications within the US and with family and friends in China.
The court order was issued after the Commerce Department stipulated on Friday which transactions with WeChat and its Chinese parent company Tencent Holdings will not be allowed under President Donald Trump’s August executive order.
The United States has claimed that WeChat is a national security threat because Tencent is intertwined with the Chinese Communist Party, which can use the app to spread propaganda, track users, and steal their proprietary and private data.
On Saturday, the government delayed a plan to ban downloads from TikTok, the popular video-sharing app. The ban would go into effect on Sunday, but the order was delayed until September, the Treasury Department said after Trump said it approved Oracle’s offer for TikTok’s US operations “in concept.”
TikTok said it is working with Walmart on a trade partnership and that, together with Oracle, it will participate in a TikTok Global pre-IPO funding round in which they can acquire up to a 20% cumulative stake in the company.
WeChat users have said that restrictions on the app are driven by election year politics.
In a hearing on Saturday, Michael Drezner, a government attorney, said that the anxiety and uncertainty that US WeChat users may experience due to the bans does not entitle them to an order stopping the implementation of the restrictions.
Its reliance on WeChat is the result of China’s ban on other social networks, which has made WeChat the exclusive option controlled by the Chinese government for communicating with people in China, according to Drezner.
Michael Bien, a lawyer for the WeChat user group, said the Commerce Department’s restrictions on WeChat are a far cry from the “strictly tailored” measures the government must impose so as not to unnecessarily restrict people’s constitutional rights.
The restrictions are intended for business-to-business transactions with WeChat and Tencent and will affect service providers in the US that maintain the functionality of the app in the first instance. However, over time, normal users will find that the app’s functionality will degrade, according to Drezner.
WeChat is used by around a billion people around the world and around 19 million people in the US, according to the user group.
“As a ‘super-app,’ WeChat users also rely on the app to make phone calls, video conference, upload documents, share photos and make payments,” the user group said in its complaint.
“It has become essential for the conduct of the daily lives of its users, many of whom spend hours each day on the application.”
