Tiktok sues US over curbs ordered by prez

SAN FRANCISCO: Tiktok said on Monday it has filed a lawsuit challenging the US government’s crackdown on the popular Chinese-owned video app, which Washington accuses of being a national security threat.

As tensions soared between the world’s two biggest economies, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 6 giving Americans 45 days to stop doing business with Tiktok’s Chinese parent company Bytedance, effectively setting a deadline for a sale of the app to a US company.

“Today, we are filing a complaint in federal court challenging the administration’s efforts to ban Tiktok in the US,” the company said in a blog post.

Tiktok argued in the lawsuit that Trump’s order was a misuse of International Emergency Economic Powers Act because the platform - on which users share often playful short-form videos is not “an unusual and extraordinary threat”.

The executive order “has the potential to strip the rights of that community without any evidence to justify such an extreme action”, the suit argued. “We believe the administration ignored our extensive efforts to address its concerns, which we conducted fully and in good faith even as we disagreed with the concerns themselves.”

Tiktok’s kaleidoscopic feeds of clips feature everything from dance routines and hair dye tutorials to jokes about daily life and politics. The app has been downloaded 175 million times in the US.

Trump claims Tiktok could be used by China to track the locations of federal employees, build dossiers on people for blackmail, and conduct espionage.

The company has said it has never provided any US user data to the Chinese government, and Beijing has blasted Trump’s crackdown as political.

The US measures come ahead of November 3 election in which Trump, trailing his rival Joe Biden in the polls, is campaigning hard on an increasingly tough anti-beijing message.

“The administration failed to follow due process and act in good faith, neither providing evidence that Tiktok was an actual threat, nor justification for its punitive actions,” the company said.