SAN FRANCISCO – TikTok yesterday asked a Washington court to stop an order by Donald Trump’s administration from taking effect this week, as the White House seeks to ban the Chinese-owned app in the US.
Chinese company ByteDance is facing a deadline of tomorrow to restructure ownership of the app in the US, to meet American security concerns.
In its court petition, TikTok asked for more time, saying it has not received enough feedback on its proposed solution.
The company, in a statement, said it has asked the government for a 30-day extension because it is “facing continual new requests and no clarity on whether our proposed solutions would be accepted”, but it has not been granted.
It is turning to the court for this reason, it said.
Trump signed a set of orders against the video platform this summer.
One required ByteDance to sell its US TikTok operations within 90 days, citing national security concerns.
The company also faced an order that would effectively ban the app from the country by the same date.
But on October 30, a Pennsylvania judge issued an injunction temporarily blocking the order aimed at banning it.
The order would have knocked the app offline by cutting it off from US businesses providing website hosting, data storage and other fundamentals needed to operate.
Trump has accused the popular video-sharing app of handing over American user data to Beijing – which the company flatly denies.
After negotiations with several US firms, ByteDance and TikTok proposed creating a new company with IT company Oracle as a technology partner and retail giant Walmart as a business partner.
The plan seemed to convince the administration, but the platform is still awaiting the green light.
TikTok said with Thursday’s “deadline imminent, and without an extension in hand, we have no choice but to file a petition in court to defend our rights and those of our more than 1,500 employees in the US”.
TikTok has 100 million users in the US. – AFP, November 11, 2020
