WASHINGTON: A US judge blocked early Sunday morning from the Commerce Department from requiring Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google to remove the Chinese-owned messaging app WeChat for download late on Sunday.
US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler in San Francisco It said in an order that WeChat users who filed a lawsuit “have shown serious doubts as to the merits of the First Amendment claim, the balance of difficulties pointing in favor of the plaintiffs.”
On Friday, the Commerce Department issued an order citing national security reasons to block the app in Tencent Holding’s-owned US app stores and the Justice Department urged Beeler not to block the order.
Beeler’s preliminary injunction also blocked Commerce’s order that would have prohibited other transactions with WeChat in the United States that could have degraded the usability of the site for current US users. The U.S. Department of Commerce had no immediate comment.
WeChat has averaged 19 million daily active users in the United States, analytics firms Apptopia said in early August. It is popular with Chinese students, Americans living in China, and some Americans who have personal or business relationships in China.
The Justice Department said blocking the order “would frustrate and displace the president’s determination on how best to address threats to national security.” But Beeler said that “while the overall evidence on the China-related national security threat (regarding technology and mobile technology) is considerable, the specific evidence on WeChat is modest.”
He added that “the regulation, which eliminates a communication channel without any apparent substitute, loads substantially more speech than is necessary to promote the significant interest of the government.”
WeChat is an all-in-one mobile application that combines services similar to Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Venmo. The app is an essential part of daily life for many in China and has more than 1 billion users.
The WeChat Users Alliance that filed the lawsuit praised the ruling “as a major and close victory” for “millions of WeChat users in the US.”
Michael Bien, the users’ attorney, said “The United States has never shut down a major communications platform, not even during wartime. There are serious First Amendment problems with the WeChat ban, which targets the Chinese community. U.S”.
He added that the order “trampled on the First Amendment guarantees freedom to speak, to worship, to read and react to the press, and to organize and associate for numerous purposes.”
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