Saturday, January 18, 2025
19.0°F

TikTok asks judge to block Trump's ban as deadline looms

AP Technology Writer | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 4 years, 3 months AGO
by AP Technology Writer
| September 23, 2020 3:27 PM

NEW YORK (AP) — Chinese-owned TikTok asked a judge to block the Trump Administration's attempt to ban its app, suggesting the video-sharing app's forced deal with Oracle and Walmart remains unsettled.

An app-store ban of TikTok, delayed once by the government, is set to go into effect Sunday. A more comprehensive ban is scheduled for November, about a week after the presidential election. President Donald Trump set this process in motion with executive orders in August that declared TikTok and another Chinese app threats to U.S. national security. The administration has offered no specifics to substantiate that charge.

Trump has pushed for a sale of TikTok's U.S. operations to an American company. The president said this week that he would bless a proposed deal in which Oracle and Walmart take a 20% stake in a new U.S. entity to be called TikTok Global. But he also said he could retract his approval if Oracle doesn't “have total control.”

The two sides in the TikTok deal appear at odds over the corporate structure of TikTok Global. ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent, said Monday that it will still own 80% of the U.S. entity after a financing round. Oracle, meanwhile, put out a statement saying that Americans "will be the majority and ByteDance will have no ownership in TikTok Global.”

Chinese media have criticized the deal, suggesting that the Chinese government is not happy with the arrangement. The Chinese government complicated deal arrangements in August when it restricted exports of artificial-intelligence tech like that used by TikTok.

One editorial in the state-owned China Daily on Wednesday called the deal a “dirty and underhanded trick.”

In its filing in federal court in the District of Columbia, TikTok said Trump's Aug. 6 executive order is unlawful. So are resulting Commerce Department prohibitions that aim to kick TikTok out of U.S. app stores and, in November, essentially shut it down in the U.S., it claimed.

The Chinese firm said the president doesn't have the authority to take these actions under the national-security law he cited; that the ban violates TikTok's First Amendment speech rights and Fifth Amendment due-process rights; and that there's no authority for the restrictions because they are not based on a national emergency.

Representatives for the Commerce Department and Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration in August also began a process to ban Chinese-owned messaging app WeChat. Restrictions that would effectively have made the app impossible to use were set to go into effect Sunday. Over the weekend, a federal judge in California approved a request from a group of U.S. WeChat users to delay those restrictions. She said the government’s actions would affect users’ First Amendment rights.

MORE IMPORTED STORIES

TikTok asks judge to block Trump's ban as deadline looms
Columbia Basin Herald | Updated 4 years, 3 months ago
Federal judge postpones Trump ban on popular app TikTok
Columbia Basin Herald | Updated 4 years, 3 months ago
TikTok fate in the balance as judge weighs app store ban
Columbia Basin Herald | Updated 4 years, 3 months ago

ARTICLES BY AP TECHNOLOGY WRITER

October 9, 2020 11:03 a.m.

Twitter tightens limits on candidates ahead of US election

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Twitter is imposing tough new rules that restrict candidates from declaring premature victory and tighten its measures against spreading misinformation, calling for political violence and spreading thoughtless commentary in the days leading up to and following the Nov. 3 U.S. election.

October 9, 2020 10:27 a.m.

Twitter tightens misinfo limits ahead of Nov. 3 US election

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Twitter is imposing tough new rules that restrict candidates from declaring premature victory and tighten its measures against spreading misinformation, calling for political violence and spreading thoughtless commentary in the days leading up to and following the Nov. 3 U.S. election.

October 9, 2020 12:06 a.m.

Facebook braces for contested election, voter intimidation

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Facebook said it’s readied new safeguards for the 2020 U.S. elections that have it better prepared to deal with candidates who prematurely declare victory or contest official results and the possibility of voter intimidation by alleged — and potentially armed — “poll watchers.”