US Judge Temporarily blocks Trump’s TikTok Ban

A District Judge in Washington DC has temporarily blocked the ban which was due to take effect a minute to midnight in a rare Sunday ruling.

President Trump had sought to ban the video-sharing service owned by ByteDance, A Beijing-based tech company citing national security risks. According to the US commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, the administration had taken “significant action to combat China’s malicious collection of American citizens’ personal data” by implementing the orders.

TikTok applauded the injunction saying it would “maintain our ongoing dialogue with the government to turn our proposal, which the president gave his preliminary approval to last week, into an agreement.” The company also maintained the ban was unnecessary as negotiations are already underway to address concerns raised by the Trump administration.

Lawyer for the company, John Hall had said a ban would be “punitive” and would affect millions of Americans, shutting them out of the public platform. TikTok lawyers said the ban was “arbitrary and capricious” and “would undermine data security” by blocking updates and fixes to the app.

Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, a judge rejected another legal move by three TikTok influencers who collectively have almost 7 million followers on the app. Doug, Marland, Coset Rinab and Alec Chambers are seeking their own stay on the ban, the trio insists that access to the app is critical to their livelihood.

A Statement by the US Commerce Department says the government would “comply with the injunction and has taken immediate steps to do so”. The statement, which defended the legality of Trump’s executive order demanding ByteDance divest its TikTok US operations within 90 days, did not say whether the government intended to appeal.

Mazi Nduka Amenechi reporting, Obinwannem News