TRUMP BAN ON TIK TOK APP HITS A ROADBLOCK

STUART HIMMEL -Staff Writer

A federal judge postponed a Trump administration order that would have banned TIK TOK from U.S. smartphone App stores.

A more comprehensive ban remains scheduled for November about a week after the Presidential election. The judge, Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, did not agree to postpone the later ban.

The ruling followed an emergency hearing Sept. 27th in which lawyers for Tik Tok argued that the administration’s app store ban would infringe on U.S. First Amendment rights and do irreparable harm to the business.

President Trump declared that Tik Tok was a threat to national security and that it must sell its U.S. operations to American companies or be barred from the country.

Tik Tok is still scrambling to firm up a deal tentatively struck the 3rd week of September in which it would partner with Oracle and Walmart in an effort to win the blessing of both the Chinese (who own Tik Tok) and the U.S. governments. In the meantime it is fighting to keep the App available in the U.S. Tik Tok is pleased with the court ruling and continues to work with both Oracle and Walmart in an effort to bring the proposal into an actual agreement. The U.S. commerce department said it will comply with the Judge’s order but intends to defend the administration’s efforts against the app. Judge Nichols did not explain his reasoning

publicly and filed his judicial opinion under seal. In arguments to Judge Nichols, Tik Tok lawyers said that Tik Tok is more than an app, since it functions as a “modern day version of a town square”. If the prohibition goes into effect at midnight, the consequences are grave. It would be no different than the government locking the doors to a public forum, roping off that town square at a time when a free exchange of ideas is necessary heading into an election. Tik Tok lawyers also argued that a ban on the app would affect the ability of tens of thousands of potential viewers and content creators to express themselves every month and would also hurt its ability to hire new talent. Their layers also argued that the ban would prevent existing users from automatically

receiving security updates eroding national security. The U.S. Justice Department lawyers said Chinese companies are not purely private and are subject to intrusive laws compelling their co-operation with intelligence agencies. They also argued that the economic regulations of this nature are not subject to First Amendment scrutiny. “This is the most immediate national security threat” argued the Justice Department lawyer. It is a risk today and therefore it deserves to be addressed today even while other things are ongoing and playing out. They also claimed that Tik Tok lawyers failed to prove the company would suffer irreparable business harm.

Trump set the process in motion with executive orders in August that declared Tik Tok and another Chinese App, We-Chat are threats to national security. The White House says the video service is a security risk because the personal information of its millions of U.S. users could be handed over to Chinese authorities. Trump has given his tentative approval to the proposed deal in which Walmart and Oracle could initially own a combined 20% of a new U.S. entity, Tik Tok Global. Trump also said he could retract his approval if Oracle does not have total control of the company. The deal remains unsigned and the two companies appear at odds over the corporate structure of Tik Tok Global. Bytedance, the Chinese Company that owns Tik Tok, said it will still own 80% of the U.S entity after a financing round. All the while, Oracle put out a statement that Americans will be the majority owner and Bytedance will have no ownership in Tik Tok Global. Government owned media in China have criticized the deal as bullying and extortion. Bytedance has applied for a Chinese technology export license after Beijing tightened control over exports last month in an effort to gain leverage over Washington‘s attempt to force an outright sale of Tik Tok to U.S. owners.

Chinese Foreign Ministry has said the government will take necessary measures to safeguard its companies but gave no indication what steps it can take to affect Tik Tok’s fate in the U.S. Bytedance said the President does not have the authority to take these actions under the national security law. They claim the ban violates Tik Tok’s First Amendment speech rights and Fifth Amendment due process rights. They claim there is no authority for the restrictions because they are not based on a national emergency.

STUART HIMMEL

Staff Writer