- TikTok plans to sue the Trump administration on Tuesday afternoon over its recent executive order, NPR reported, citing a source directly involved in the lawsuit.
- The recent executive order of President Donald Trump prohibits US individuals and companies from doing “any transaction” with the Chinese firm ByteDance, the app’s parent company.
- NPR reported the lawsuit will allege that the administration “failed to give the company a chance to respond” to the order.
- The lawsuit also alleges the administration’s justification of the order for reasons of “national security” is not supported by evidence, according to NPR.
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TikTok has been able to prosecute the Trump administration over its recent executive order since Tuesday, NPR reported Saturday, citing a source “directly involved in the upcoming package.”
President Donald Trump’s executive order on Thursday banned US individuals and companies from conducting business transactions with TikTok parent company Chinese firm ByteDance.
The order – which was followed by a similar order targeting WeChat, a messaging platform that also belongs to a Chinese company – cited concerns about national security.
The order stated that the app’s data collection methods “could give the Chinese Communist Party access to personal and proprietary information of Americans.”
CIA analysts told the White House that although it had access to data for the Chinese government, there was “no evidence yet” that it has done so, according to the New York Times.
The upcoming TikTok lawsuit will claim that the order is “unconstitutional” because it did not “give the company a chance to respond,” according to NPR. In addition, NPR reported that the lawsuit would argue that the order’s reference to national security concerns to justify the order is “based on pure speculation and concept.”
A TikTok spokesman declined to comment to Business Insider outside the company’s statement issued Friday, saying “there is no, and continues to be, no responsible process or adherence to the law.”
The statement said Trump’s order had “confidence in unnamed” reports “without citations, fearing the app could ‘be’ used for misinformation campaigns with no substantiation of such fears”, adding that the company “made it clear that TikTok has not yet shared any user data with the Chinese government, nor censored content on request. “It said it” will pursue all remedies “to” uphold the rule of law “-” if not by the administration, then by the American courts. “
In early July, both Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that they were looking for a potential ban on the TikTok app in the US. The New York Times reported in late July that Microsoft was in talks about a potential purchase of TikTok. Microsoft publicly announced in early August – days before Trump issued an executive order – that it was continuing talks on the potential acquisition of TikTok’s operations in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Meanwhile, a law professor at the University of Nebraska Lincoln told Business Insider’s Tyler Sonnemaker and Paige Leskin that Trump’s executive orders on TikTok and WeChat “probably have problems with the First Amendment.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request from Business Insider for comment.
