U.S. judge blocks Trump's TikTok app store ban
A U.S. judge late on Sunday (September 27) temporarily blocked a Trump administration order that was set to ban video-sharing app TikTok from download on Apple and Google's app stores.
The Chinese-owned TikTok was to be barred at 11:59 p.m on Sunday, but U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a nominee of President Donald Trump, said in a brief order he was issuing a preliminary injunction to prevent the TikTok app store ban from taking effect.
In a 90-minute Sunday morning hearing, a lawyer for TikTok, John E. Hall, argued that the ban was quote "irrational" as negotiations were still under way.
Back in mid August Donald Trump gave ByteDance 90 days to sell TikTok, citing security concerns about the safety of data of its 100 million American users and the potential for China to access that data.
The latest news comes as parent company, ByteDance, said it had made a preliminary deal for Walmart and Oracle to take stakes in a newly formed company, TikTok Global, that would oversee the U.S. operations.
Negotiations continue over the terms of the agreement and to resolve concerns from Washington and Beijing.
