Donald Trump signed a decree in early August to ban the very popular social network, which belongs to the Chinese group ByteDance, unless it falls into the fold of an American company. Hours before the government's decision to ban the application from downloading platforms took effect, Judge Carl Nicholas ruled in favor of TikTok, which had filed an appeal on September 18.
The magistrate, appointed by Donald Trump in 2019, has however for the moment refused to suspend the total ban on the application on American soil, scheduled for November 12. The reasons for his decision are under seal to protect potentially confidential information, but are due to be released on Monday once the two sides agree.
Satisfied
"We are satisfied that the court agreed with our legal arguments and prevented the implementation of the ban," responded TikTok. The Commerce Ministry said it would comply with the judge's ruling, but fully intended "to vigorously defend the presidential decree against legal pitfalls."
In a telephone hearing Sunday morning, lawyers for TikTok said blocking downloads of the app would be unconstitutional and violate the right to free speech, especially in the run-up to the November 3 presidential election. "TikTok is much more than an application, it is the modern version of the public forum, it is a community, it is a means of communication (...) all the more important in times of pandemic", argues lawyer John Hall. "If the ban goes into effect, it's like the government is blocking 2/3 of the country from coming to the agora."
The platform also assured that it would cause irreparable damage in terms of growth, while it gained some 424,000 new American users per day at the beginning of the summer. And stopping updates would ironically "erode security" for the current 100 million US users, Hall said.
Spying
For its part, the government considers ByteDance as a "spokesperson" for the Chinese Communist Party and says it wants to prevent new users from being exposed to the risk of having their data looted by China. Donald Trump has long accused TikTok of spying on its users for the benefit of Beijing, without evidence.
Since its decree, negotiations, invective at the top and twists and turns in the courts have been linked. If the negotiations do not succeed, a complete ban on the network's activities on American soil could come into force from November 12, the Treasury warned.
A future agreement
TikTok last weekend confirmed an agreement to create a new company, TikTok Global, with Oracle as a technology partner in the United States and Walmart as a business partner. There would also be a stake of 12.5% from Oracle and 7.5% from Walmart. The Americans would hold four of the five seats on the board. But the finalization depends on the goodwill of the American president and the Chinese government. "We are continuing our ongoing dialogue with the government to finalize this project, to which the president has given his preliminary approval," TikTok said on Sunday evening.
The app has become the new symbol of the battle between the United States and China for dominance of the high tech sector. The White House host, campaigning for reelection, hammered this week that he would not give his approval if the new group remained under Chinese control while claiming that Walmart and Oracle would own the majority.
Algorithm
ByteDance, which includes US investors, called the information "false rumors." But ByteDance announced that it had made a "request for authorization" to export technology, without specifying on what subject. This initiative could concern the famous algorithm that made TikTok so successful: it allows users to display the content most likely to interest them, according to their tastes, which leads them to spend the most time on the platform. . China refuses to let this precious computer system fall into the hands of the United States.