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WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 (China Daily / ANN): The US government said it would delay the implementation of a ban on Tik-Tok to comply with a court ruling, and has been given to the popular video-sharing app more time to file paperwork for a potential downgrade.
The US Commerce Department said in a document obtained by the media Thursday that “a preliminary injunction ordered by a federal district court on October 30 prevents the implementation of specific actions by the Department.”
Therefore, the department’s order that was scheduled to take effect on Thursday “has been banned and will not go into effect, pending legal developments,” the agency said.
Also Thursday, an appeals court in Washington gave Tik-Tok until December 14 to file further paperwork on its divestment plans, after the company filed a petition Tuesday asking for a 30-day extension of its deadline . TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, said government officials had not given it comment on its divestment plan in weeks.
The Commerce Department issued an order in September banning TikTok downloads in the United States as of September 27. It also ordered a separate set of technical restrictions on TikTok, banning data hosting, content delivery, and other services within the US, effective Thursday.
Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on Friday that China always opposes the act of generalizing the concept of national security. “We expect the United States to seriously respect the market economy and fair competition, abide by the rules, and provide a fair, fair, and nondiscriminatory business environment.”
‘Hypothetical’ threat
The preliminary injunction cited in the Commerce Department document was issued by United States District Court Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Pennsylvania. The judge ruled that US President Donald Trump exceeded his authority by invoking his emergency economic powers to impose sanctions against TikTok, citing a threat to US security.
“The government’s own descriptions of the threat to national security posed by the TikTok application are hypothetically written,” Beetlestone wrote.
The lawsuit was filed by three TikTok influencers, all of whom have millions of followers on the app and earn substantial money through short videos.
The US government appealed the court’s ruling on Thursday. Government lawyers have argued that it is trying to prevent data about TikTok users in the US from being shared with the Chinese government, a claim that TikTok has repeatedly denied. TikTok has said that it stores all the data of American users in the country.
TikTok filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in district court in Los Angeles in August, challenging a Trump executive order banning US transactions with the company.
Trump said he would ban TikTok in the United States unless it was owned by an American company. He also said his government should get a piece of the deal, and he publicly endorsed software company Oracle as a potential buyer for TikTok.
Oracle, partnering with Walmart, had proposed taking an ownership stake in TikTok that would satisfy the White House’s “national security” concerns, but the deal never materialized and remains stalled.
Cui Haipei in Beijing contributed to this story.
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