Trump Administration Appeals Court Injunction Blocking TikTok Restrictions

The seemingly neverending saga between the Trump administration and ByteDance’s TikTok continues. The Department of Justice has filed to appeal a ruling that prohibited certain restrictions regarding the short-form video app.

On December 7th, US District Judge Carl Nichols set a preliminary injunction in motion. This court order blocked the US Department of Commerce from placing restrictions on TikTok that would prevent new app downloads in the country. As reported by CNN, the Trump administration has since attempted to challenge the order and gain an appeal from the courts.

The conflict between the Trump administration and TikTok has been boiling over for the latter half of this year. TikTok, an app that rapidly grew in popularity this year, landed on the administration’s list of contention following worries that it posed a security threat for users in the country. This lead to President Trump signing an executive order on August 14th that would thereby ban TikTok if its parent company ByteDance was unwilling to divest into a US company. He gave TikTok a 90-day deadline to formalize an agreement with a US company.

ByteDance then went on to conduct discussions with companies such a Microsoft and Oracle regarding a sale of its US assets. In turn, TikTok Global would then be created in the US. Oracle and Walmart have supposedly reached an agreement but have yet to finalize the deal. The Trump administration has supposedly given its approval for the deal. If and when a deal is finalized, TikTok Global would oversee all of the processing and storage of TikTok within the US.

It’s still uncertain how the new appeal will shake things up. Earlier this month, TikTok’s latest extension came and went and a new deadline was shelved as discussions with the US administration continued. At the time, it did not seem as though a ban of the app was a priority for the US government. However, the situation may have changed since. There’s no telling what the resolution may be, especially given that President-elect Biden will step into office next month.

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