Trump Administration Appeals Federal Injunction Stopping TikTok Ban

The US is appealing a temporary block on President Donald Trump’s ban on TikTok, reported the Wall Street Journal. 

The Trump administration set out to block TikTok earlier this year due to national security concerns. If a sale wasn’t completed in time, the Chinese-owned video-sharing app would effectively have been shut down in the US.

However, a judge granted a preliminary injunction against the ruling September 27, with the position that the Trump administration had likely exceeded its legal powers.

As of Thursday, October 8, the Trump administration has set about filing a notice of appeal, beginning the process of objecting to the injunction, Bloomberg reported.

If TikTok is actually banned in the US, it will be removed from stores run by Apple and Google, which make up a large majority of the app marketplace in the country. That would mean people who didn’t already have the app wouldn’t be able to get it, and those who did, wouldn’t be able to access updates to keep upgrading the app.

The issue also covers another app, WeChat, which the Trump administration is also trying to ban. The proposed ban on WeChat was also blocked in court, and the US also appealed that last week.

Earlier this month, China announced it had found the World Trade Organization (WTO) as an ally in the fight over the proposed TikTok and WeChat bans. The WTO is a Geneva-based organization that aims to make sure global trade flows as well as possible. An unnamed China official said a closed WTO meeting had involved discussions saying the US’s measures don’t align with the WTO’s rules.

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