The TikTok and Bytedance logos DADO RUVIC / Reuters
The video-sharing application TikTok, owned by the Chinese company Bytedance, has appealed to a Washington court to try to stop the veto with which the Donald Trump Administration threatens it.
The White House decided last week to order the application stores (Google and Apple) to remove the popular application and prevent updates to users who already have it installed.
The ban was due to take effect last Sunday but has been delayed to Sunday this week.
The White House considers TikTok to be a threat to national security.
Despite being a US company based in California, it is owned by a Chinese parent and the US Government understands that it is obliged to share all the data it obtains from US users with the Chinese Government.
Last August, Donald Trump signed an executive order that in practice forced TikTok to negotiate its sale to a US company or to cease its activity in the country.
The ban extends to the Chinese messaging app WeChat.
Months of negotiations, in which the company received a powerful offer from Microsoft, ended last week with an agreement that created a new company called TikTok Global, based in the United States, in which the giant has a 20% stake. of the Oracle databases and the Walmart supermarket chain.
On September 19, Trump assured that he had given his "blessing" to the agreement, that its terms guaranteed the security of TikTok's operations and that the new company would create 25,000 jobs in the country.
Trump changed his mind on Monday, announcing that he would not approve any deal in which Bytedance, the Chinese parent, would retain a stake in TikTok.
The Chinese parent company would hold 80% ownership until the company goes public, an operation that can last a year.
The operation is also complicated on the side of China.
The government of Beijing passed a rule that prevents TikTok from selling its algorithm, the true heart of the company's value, without a license.
The company has requested this license.
The brief presented in the court of the District of Columbia requests from the judge a precautionary stay of the White House order that can make the country's application disappear this Sunday.
TikTok argues that there is no urgency to justify this measure and that it has made "extraordinary efforts to meet ever-changing government demands and alleged national security concerns."
