A separate case brought by TikTok itself is pending in another court in the US capital (representation)
Washington:
The U.S. government on Thursday said it would delay enforcing a TikTok ban, saying it will comply with a court ruling in favor of the China-owned social media sensation.
The successful shorthand video app was banned due to national security concerns expressed by U.S. officials, but the Commerce Department said it was waiting due to a federal judge’s injunction issued on Oct. 30.
“The department is complying with the terms of this order,” he said in a statement, adding that the ban “has been prohibited and will not come into effect pending further legal developments.”
The news comes amid a torrent of litigation over President Donald Trump’s decision to ban the fast-growing app unless it is sold to U.S. investors.
A federal court on Oct. 30 in Pennsylvania ruled out the Trump administration from implementing the ban in a case brought by the “creators” of TikTok.
A separate case brought by TikTok itself is pending in another court in the U.S. capital, which last month barred the U.S. government from enforcing the ban on new downloads of the app.
TikTok’s parent company ByteDance had until Thursday to restructure the ownership of the app in the United States to address national security concerns, but it filed a petition in a Washington court this week asking a delay.
The company said in a statement Tuesday that it had asked the government for a 30-day extension due to “continual new demands and no clarity as to whether our proposed solutions would be accepted,” but that was not granted.
The Trump administration has sought to transfer ownership of TikTok to a U.S. company to allay security concerns, but no deal has been finalized.
ByteDance and TikTok have offered to form a new company with IT company Oracle as a technology partner and retail giant Walmart as a business partner.
TikTok has 100 million users in the United States.
The Trump administration has said TikTok needs to become a U.S. company controlled by U.S. investors to avoid a ban. But any plan would likely require approval from Beijing, which has been reluctant to ditch its social media star.
Trump and his aides have claimed that TikTok and its parent company could be used to collect data on Americans for Chinese espionage, a claim the company rejected.
TikTok did not comment immediately on the latest development but said on October 30 that it was “deeply moved by the outpouring of support from our creators, who have worked to protect their rights to expression, their careers. and help small businesses, especially during the pandemic. “
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
