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US plans to ban TikTok; Trump administration sued in response

US plans to ban TikTok; Trump administration sued in response

Washington, Sep 19 (UNI) United States Department of Commerce has said that the Chinese video-sharing social networking app -- TikTok would be banned in the country from September 20 onward due to national security reason.
President Donald Trump issued the order abruptly after stating that TikTok didn’t “have any rights" and that he would ban the app if ByteDance did not pay the US to secure government approval of a sale of its US operations -- which the president later admitted would be unlawful, according to the complaint.
The Trump administration has repeatedly said the apps are a threat because of their collection of data.
Friday's statement from the commerce department said the governing Chinese Communist Party "has demonstrated the means and motives to use these apps to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and the economy of the US."
In response, TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance Ltd, has filed a complaint in Washington federal court challenging US President Donald Trump’s executive order that would block US companies from doing business with the company.
TikTok claims that the planned ban would be a violation of its First Amendment free speech rights.
TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance Ltd, filed a complaint in Washington federal court late Friday night challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order that would block US companies from doing business with them.
Trump exceeded his authority when he moved to ban the app and did so for political reasons rather than to stop an “unusual and extraordinary threat" to the US, as the law requires, according to the complaint. TikTok also said the ban violates the company’s First Amendment free speech rights.
Trump’s actions would “destroy an online community where millions of Americans have come together to express themselves," according to the complaint. The company also claims that the US Commerce Department “ignored evidence" showing TikTok’s commitment to privacy and security of its American users.
TikTok said it offered alternatives to the president’s ban to address US concerns but that on Friday the Commerce Department “mandated the destruction of TikTok in the United States." Any lawsuit challenging such executive orders will face an uphill fight, according to James Dempsey, executive director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California at Berkeley. “Courts generally do not review the president’s determinations on questions of national security," Dempsey said before the case was filed.
The company has also denied holding any user data in China, saying it is stored in the US and in Singapore. Tencent, which owns WeChat, has said that messages on its app are private.
The suit comes as Trump steps up his campaign against China, betting that a hard line against Beijing will help him win November’s election despite upsetting millions of younger TikTok users. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has urged American companies to bar Chinese applications from their app stores, part of his “Clean Network" guidance designed to prevent authorities in China from accessing personal data of US citizens.
The order followed an investigation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, which reviews proposed acquisitions of domestic businesses by overseas investors for national security concerns.
On June 29, the Indian government too put a ban on the app used to create short entertaining videos along with 58 others having Chinese-link, citing national security. The move came two weeks after a violent clash between Indian and Chinese troop at Galwan Valley in Ladakh.
UNI XC-RHK SRJ1704

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