US Judge blocks TikTok ban, asks the US to defend the decision
The Commerce Department of the United States issued an executive order to Apple and Google to ban WeChat and TikTok from their app stores, but now US District Judge Carl Nichols blocked the decision.
The judge said the government âmust file a response to a request by TikTok for a preliminary injunction or delay the order by 2:30 pm EDT Friday.â
A similar situation is happening in California, with a federal judge issuing a preliminary injunction blocking the ban of WeChat - another platform, owned by a Chinese conglomerate Tencent. According to TikTok, the restrictions âare not motivated by a genuine national security concernâ but are rather being used as a bargaining chip in the upcoming general elections.
Last Saturday saw a different sort of delay to the ban after âpositive developmentsâ - Walmart and Oracle reportedly will join hands in purchasing a minor stake in TikTok Global - a new subsidiary by ByteDance that is supposedly going to make TikTok a platform for influencers and brands to promote products while doing their silly dances.