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Trump’s legal crusade against TikTok is blocked after a second judge rules that the president exceeded his authority by trying to ban the app.
- US District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington issued the order Monday night.
- TikTok says the restrictions would have effectively banned its use in the US.
- Nichols said the move to restrict use of the app was ‘arbitrary and capricious’
A second US judge has blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to ban TikTok in the US.
It’s the latest defeat in the White House’s legal crusade against the Chinese-owned video-sharing app after it said the president’s move would have banned its use in the United States.
US District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington found that Trump exceeded his authority by using his emergency economic powers to try to ban the app.
It comes after another U.S. judge in Pennsylvania blocked restrictions that would go into effect Nov. 12 after influential people sued.
A second US judge has blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to ban TikTok in the US.
Nichols wrote that TikTok lawyers were able to show Trump officials that they “ did not adequately consider an obvious and reasonable alternative before banning TikTok. ”
He added that the measure to restrict the use of the application was ‘arbitrary and capricious’.
Trump’s Commerce Department was seeking to prevent people from being able to download TikTok from app stores.
They also tried to stop Transactions between Americans and TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance.
The Trump administration has appealed against sanctions that were already blocked in October in Pennsylvania.
It is the latest defeat in the White House’s legal crusade against the video-sharing app that the company says would have effectively banned its use in the United States.
Nichols wrote that if Trump wins that appeal, his court order would remain to prevent users from leaving TikTok for a competing app.
He added that this would cause ‘irreparable damage’ to TikTok.
Commerce Department officials said they were taking an extraordinary step to try to ban TikTok due to the risks posed by collecting data from the apps.
China has denied collecting data from US users for spying.
The Trump administration has stepped up its efforts to purge ‘untrusted’ Chinese apps from US digital networks, calling TikTok and WeChat ‘significant threats’.
In August, the Trump administration threatened to ban TikTok citing concerns about alleged spying by the Chinese government, but the ban did not go into effect due to legislation.
The US government has offered the Chinese a way out if they were willing to sell TikTok to an American company.
TikTok has 100 million users in the United States and is especially popular with younger Americans.
