U.S. must make case or delay TikTok ban
Deadline today as injunction sought
The Trump administration was ordered to postpone a U.S. ban on TikTok set for Sunday night or respond by today to a request by the app’s Chinese owner for a court order temporarily blocking the ban.
The owner, ByteDance Ltd., is seeking a preliminary injunction on the ban even as it continues to pursue approvals from the administration for a sale of the popular video-sharing app’s U.S. operations to Oracle Corp. and Walmart Inc. forced by Pres
ident Donald Trump. It has asked the court to weigh its request ahead of the prohibition, which is to take effect just before midnight Sunday.
Following a hearing Thursday, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols gave the U.S. until 1:30 p.m. today to agree to delay its deadline or file court papers opposing ByteDance’s bid for the injunction. Without a delay of the ban, the judge would hold a hearing on the injunction request Sunday morning.
On Thursday, the U.S. argued against an expedited schedule in the case, saying ByteDance had filed a separate suit more than a month ago and was late in requesting the injunction in this one.
“TikTok is allowed to continue operating with respect to existing users but cannot add users, and the reason for that is that there are significant national security risks” Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Schwei told the judge.
Both TikTok and WeChat, which is owned by China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd., have been labeled national security threats by the Trump administration, which is seek- ing to stop their use in the U.S. — or, in TikTok’s case, force a sale to U.S. companies — on the grounds they could allow China’s government to gain access to personal data from millions of Americans.
ByteDance said Thursday it has applied for a Chinese technology export license as it tries to complete the deal with Oracle and Walmart.
Beijing tightened control over technology exports last month in an effort to gain leverage over Washington’s attempt to force an outright sale of TikTok to U.S. owners.
ByteDance said it applied to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce for an export license and was awaiting a reply. The one-sentence statement gave no details.