US government appeals judge's order blocking TikTok restrictions

WASHINGTON:

The US government on Monday appealed a federal judge’s order that blocked the Commerce Department from imposing restrictions on Chinese-owned short video-sharing app TikTok that would have effectively barred its use in the United States.

President Donald Trump’s administration has cited national security concerns in its targeting of TikTok, arguing that the personal data of US users could be obtained by China’s government. TikTok, which has over 100 million users in the United States, denies the allegation.

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In a December 7 ruling, US District Court Judge Carl Nichols in Washington issued an order that prevented the Commerce Department from barring data hosting within the United States for TikTok, content delivery services, and other technical transactions that Bytedance said would have prevented TikTok’s US use.

The Justice Department said it was appealing Nichols’ order to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

A separate US appeals court is set to hear an appeal in February of an October ruling by US District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Pennsylvania, who blocked the same restrictions that had been set to take effect on November 12.

Officials briefed on the matter told Reuters it is increasingly unlikely the government will resolve the fate of TikTok in the United States before Trump leaves office on January 20. There is still an outside chance a deal could be struck in January, they said.

In a separate ruling in September, Nichols issued an order blocking the Commerce Department from requiring Apple and Alphabet’s Google to remove the TikTok app from their stores.

A US appeals court in Washington heard the government’s appeal of that ruling two weeks ago.

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Earlier this month, the Trump administration opted not to grant TikTok-owner ByteDance a new extension of an order issued by the president in August requiring the company to divest TikTok’s US assets. That gave the Justice Department the power to enforce the divestiture order once the deadline expired.

In a December 16 interview with Reuters, then-Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen declined to say if the Justice Department would seek to enforce the order. Rosen has since become the acting US attorney general.

Under pressure from the US government, ByteDance has been in talks for months to finalize a deal with Walmart and Oracle Corp to shift TikTok’s US assets into a new entity.