TikTok to Sue Trump Administration Over US Ban as Soon As Tuesday

[MacRumors]

TikTok plans to sue the Trump administration as soon as this week, challenging the president's recent executive order to ban the short-form video sharing platform from the United States.

According to a source who spoke to NPR, TikTok will file a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Southern California, where its American operations are based, as early as Tuesday.

NPR has learned that the lawsuit will argue that President Trump's far-reaching action is unconstitutional because it failed to give the company a chance to respond. It also alleges that the administration's national security justification for the order is baseless, according to the source.

"It's based on pure speculation and conjecture," the source said. "The order has no findings of fact, just reiterates rhetoric about China that has been kicking around."

White House spokesman Judd Deere declined to comment on the potential lawsuit, and instead defended the executive order. "The Administration is committed to protecting the American people from all cyber related threats to critical infrastructure, public health and safety, and our economic and national security," he said.

Trump on Friday signed two executive orders that would officially ban any U.S. transactions with the Chinese companies that own TikTok and WeChat in 45 days, in an escalation of the ongoing technological cold war between the two countries.

TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance, said it was "shocked" by the executive order and that it would respond in court, if necessary. In a statement, TikTok said, "The text of the decision makes it plain that there has been a reliance on unnamed 'reports' with no citations, fears that the app 'may be' used for misinformation campaigns with no substantiation of such fears, and concerns about the collection of data that is industry standard for thousands of mobile apps around the world."

Microsoft has publicly confirmed its intention to purchase TikTok in the United States within 45 days, and the company is currently in discussions with ByteDance. Twitter has also reportedly expressed interest in acquiring the service. A previous report suggesting Apple is interested in buying the app turned out to be inaccurate.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: TikTok to Sue Trump Administration Over US Ban as Soon As Tuesday

 

[NBAasDOGG]

Go China!

Teach those capitalists a lesson!

Maybe they will learn to implement a health care system instead of distracting their people with irrelevant TikTok news...

 

[chineseguy38]

Ban, ban and ban all of them.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Hmmm, Russians backing Comrade Trump and other Putin Republicans, but Chinese supposedly backing Biden and other Democratic candidates. Trying to ban financial transactions with WeChat and TikTok sends a pretty strong message
the current administration is not pleased.

I guess our elections will be decided by whomever has the best hackers and misinformation campaigns. KGB/GRU/Facebook are pretty formidable, can China compete with the big boys?

 

[MBX]

**** China, **** TikTok and **** Trump

 

[BootLoxes]

Might be the first time I am rooting for Trump... get that chinese spyware out of here!

EDIT: RIP my notifications inbox

 

[tmoerel]

Might be the first time I am rooting for Trump... get that chinese spyware out of here!

I hope you are realising that if Apple has to remove these apps from the app store globally that they will incur a huge loss of income. And a huge a loss of income will result in less R&D money and new products.

 

[Donnation]

I hope you are realising that if Apple has to remove these apps from the app store globally that they will incur a huge loss of income. And a huge a loss of income will result in less R&D money and new products.

Lol, I think they will be fine. People will move on to another app and TikTok will just become another Vine app that died out.

 

[ericwn]

Might be the first time I am rooting for Trump... get that chinese spyware out of here!

Yeah, ban every app that can be sniffed out by any secret service regardless of location. That will be interesting.

 

[borntrouble]

I hope you are realising that if Apple has to remove these apps from the app store globally that they will incur a huge loss of income. And a huge a loss of income will result in less R&D money and new products.

LESS NEW PRODUCTS?!!!!??? Hell, that pretty much seems like the worst consequence!

 

[Paradoxally]

I hope you are realising that if Apple has to remove these apps from the app store globally that they will incur a huge loss of income. And a huge a loss of income will result in less R&D money and new products.

They will be fine. It's just another dumb social media app. Apple has billions and this isn't their core market.

 

[ericwn]

I hope you are realising that if Apple has to remove these apps from the app store globally that they will incur a huge loss of income. And a huge a loss of income will result in less R&D money and new products.

Oh the app costs money or what is Apple losing here? I thought the app is free.

 

[Dwalls90]

Ban, ban and ban all of them.

Hopefully Facebook is next.
[automerge]1597057853[/automerge]

Might be the first time I am rooting for Trump... get that chinese spyware out of here!

There’s a reason he’s doing it 90 days out from the election.

 

[hagjohn]

Hopefully Facebook is next.

Facebook and Twitter are a bigger threat to our freedoms than TikTok.

 

[scottrods]

As much software as China has banned from phones - even native apps to iPhones (from memory)... this seems like a no-win for China. (I know of at least a couple in the the last year that were used by students and protestors, to communicate their plans to protest against the regime, so they ban anything that limits their agenda as well...)

 

[826317]

It's kind of funny that a Chinese company is using America's constitution to defend itself, a defence that wouldn't fly in their home country.

 

[gnasher729]

Oh the app costs money or what is Apple losing here? I thought the app is free.

iPhone sales. Chinese users want these apps, so many will buy Android phones instead.

 

[hagar]

The only reason Trump is doing this, is to shift attention from his horrible popularity ratings and his failure to address the COVID pandemic. And guess what? It’s working.

Always talking about freedom, but in the end Americans want a government that decides for them what apps they can install.

 

[Kylo83]

trump is doing the right thing !

 

[eulslix]

Might be the first time I am rooting for Trump... get that chinese spyware out of here!

Then first please get rid of all the U.S. Spyware. The whole rest of the world is kind of sick of it. Thanks

 

[AlexGraphicD]

I hope they loose BIG TIME!!!! Keep obnoxious spyware social apps away from this nation that was founded on ideas of liberty and free speech!! Enough with the communist Chinese infiltration on all levels of our western way of life!!!!

 

[bbeagle]

It's kind of funny that a Chinese company is using America's constitution to defend itself, a defence that wouldn't fly in their home country.

And China will realize that our Constitution isn't worth anything since Trump has been president.

 

[ericwn]

iPhone sales. Chinese users want these apps, so many will buy Android phones instead.

Chinese users solely with a US App Store account. Elsewhere would continue as usual, right?

 

[ericwn]

trump is doing the right thing !

So none of the apps developed in China should be in the App Store in your opinion, unless they’re forced to sell their American business to someone else?

 

[ruka.snow]

I hope they loose BIG TIME!!!! Keep obnoxious spyware social apps away from this nation that was founded on ideas of liberty and free speech!! Enough with the communist Chinese infiltration on all levels of our western way of life!!!!

The liberty and free speech that the NSA and Facebook have the right to sell to the highest bidder?

Before trying to 'fix' another country, fix your home issues. The rest of the world is fed up having our data harvested by companies and agencies in the USA. Enough with American infiltration on all levels of our western way of life!!!!