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In a lawsuit against US President Donald Trump and the Commerce Department, TikTok and parent company Bytedanc are demanding a court order.
TikTok and Chinese parent company Bytedance are making a fresh attempt to stop the imminent end of the popular US app in court. In a lawsuit filed Saturday night against US President Donald Trump and the Commerce Department, they demand, among other things, a court order.
According to US government decisions, US smartphone users will no longer be able to download TikTok starting Monday, and the app will stop working on November 12. TikTok has around 100 million users in the US.
Trump calls TikTok a security risk. In his opinion, the Chinese authorities could use the app to obtain data from Americans. With this justification, he laid the groundwork for the end of the application in the US with two orders. TikTok and Bytedance deny the allegations. The US government is immediately disconnecting the Chinese messaging app WeChat due to similar criticisms – it will disappear from app stores and lose most of its functionality on Monday. WeChat also wants to avoid that in a California court.
Violation of the constitution?
In their lawsuit, TikTok and Bytedance argue that the actions of the Trump administration violate their rights and the United States Constitution. They had already sued for Trump’s decrees with a similar justification.
At the same time, negotiations on a deal for the US app business continue in the background. Trump insists that American investors must have a majority on TikTok in the United States. The Chinese government had torpedoed earlier talks about Microsoft’s purchase of the US company with new software export rules.
China, meanwhile, strongly condemned the announced blockade of TikTok and WeChat apps. “Without any evidence, the United States has repeatedly used the power of the state to go after the two companies for unfounded reasons and put pressure on them,” a Commerce Department spokesman said on Saturday, referring to the two Chinese operators of the apps. Bytedance and Tencent. If Washington does not refrain from its “harassing” behavior, Beijing will take steps to protect the rights and interests of Chinese companies, he warned.
(WHAT / dpa)
