Tencent Holdings Ltd. WeChat and ByteDance Ltd. TikTok app icons are displayed on a smartphone in an arranged photo taken in Arlington, Virginia, on Friday, August 7, 2020.
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
TikTok plans to prosecute the Trump administration as early as next week over the president’s executive order banning U.S. transactions with the popular video-sharing app and its Chinese parent ByteDance, the company confirmed Saturday.
Under the President’s executive order issued August 6, all transactions with ByteDance subject to U.S. jurisdiction will be subject to a ban within 45 days. The full scope of the ban is unclear, as it gives the Secretary of State for Commerce the power to identify those transactions that are subject to Trump’s order.
A separate order issued on August 14 gave ByteDance 90 days to disinvest TikTok’s US operations. ByteDance is in talks with potential buyers such as Microsoft and Oracle. The August 6 executive order challenge does not affect sales discussions with Microsoft and Oracle.
“Even though we strongly disagree with the administration’s concerns, we have been seeking for almost a year in good faith to provide a constructive solution,” a TikTok spokesman told CNBC. “What we encountered instead was a lack of due process, because the administration did not pay attention to facts and tried to involve itself in negotiations between private companies. To ensure that the rule of law prevails and that our company and users to be treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the executive order through the judicial system. “
TikTok is working to ensure that its employees continue to pay, even if the app is actually banned in the US, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.
TikTok is popular with teens and is known for sharing videos of dances and comedic routines in 60-second bites, many of which go viral.
U.S. officials fear that information about users could be passed on to the Chinese Communist government, and the Trump administration is stepping up efforts to remove Chinese apps from U.S. online networks.
Reuters reported it first.
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