A federal judge on Sunday partially granted TikTok’s request for a temporary injunction against a push by the Trump administration to ban the app in the United States. The ruling blocks a US government ban on downloads of the app mere hours before the policy was to take effect.
The ban would have been an “extraordinary action at the very time when the need for free open and accessible communication in America is at its zenith” ahead of a presidential election, said John Hall, an attorney representing TikTok, said during an emergency hearing Sunday morning.
Government lawyers, meanwhile, argued at that hearing that TikTok’s ownership by a Chinese firm represented an “immediate danger” to national security. The app’s parent company ByteDance is based in Beijing, and the Trump administration has claimed that the app’s American user data risks winding up in the hands of the Chinese government. (Tiktok has denied this as a possibility and says it keeps US data stateside, with a backup in Singapore.)
Judge Carl Nichols’ opinion was issued under seal, so his exact reasoning for the order is not public. But during the emergency hearing, Nichols indicated that the Trump administration’s ban, as structured, could be considered a “fairly significant deprivation” of the company’s due process rights.
TikTok said in a statement that it was “pleased” with the ruling.
“We will continue defending our rights for the benefit of our community and employees,” the company said in a statement, adding that it continues to talk to the government about the proposal that Trump tentatively approved.
The Commerce Department said late Sunday that it would comply with the injunction, but adding that its order was “fully consistent with the law and promotes legitimate national security interests.”
It added that the US government intends to “vigorously defend” its order.
— Kevin Bohn contributed to this report.