U.S. District Judge Nichols (Carl Nichols) in Washington today blocked the government’s ban, allowing the popular short-video sharing platform TikTok to escape its fate. He said Trump’s attempt to block TikTok may have violated the law.
Agence France-Presse reported that Nichols said in a written judgment that TikTok had proved that this action “may exceed the legal possibilities of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).”
At TikTok’s request, Nichols suspended the implementation of the Trump administration’s ban on TikTok. Since then, users in the United States are prohibited from downloading this short video sharing application (App) that is preferred by prospective users.
Nichols said that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act restricts the president’s prohibition of any personal communication that does not involve value. He believes that TikTok’s video clips are only for information.
Nichols said in the ruling: “There are currently more than 100 million American users using TikTok to share videos, photos, art and news.”
Nichols also said that this ban will also cause TikTok to suffer insurmountable harm. “The removal of TikTok from the US App Store will not have an immediate and direct impact. It will prevent new users from registering to use the App, which may cause them Turn to other platforms to narrow the competitive segment of TikTok.”
TikTok said in the statement: “We are pleased that the court has replaced our legal arguments and issued an injunction.”
Government lawyers argued that Trump has the right to take national security actions, and also said that TikTok’s relationship with the Chinese government through its parent company ByteDance is necessary for this ban.
Another American media believes that the Trump administration’s TikTok and WeChat bans have been declining one after another, indicating that the federal court may even agree to the argument that China poses a threat, but the Trump administration has failed to prove that these applications themselves are the source of the threat.
Nichols mentioned in the ruling that the Trump administration produced “sufficient evidence” to prove that China poses a national security threat, but there is no substantive evidence to prove that this threat is caused by TikTok.
Earlier, US District Court Judge Laurel Beeler in San Francisco also blocked a similar ban on WeChat by the Trump administration on the 19th.
Biller said in the ruling at the time: “Even the government has proved that China’s activities have caused major national security concerns, but there is insufficient evidence to support that if all US users are effectively prohibited from using WeChat, the problem can be solved.”