The social network TikTok intends to sue the administration of President Donald Trump over US plans to block the Chinese-owned app in the country. The sources consulted by Reuters foresee that this demand will be presented next week.
The basis of the Bytedance subsidiary's argument will be that President Trump denied the company due process when the president issued the executive order on August 6 requiring that transactions with the application stop within 45 days. . His reasoning, the risks to national security that the app entails by capturing "large amounts of information from its users."
"We do not agree at all with the concerns of the Administration. Despite this, we have tried to participate in good faith for almost a year to provide a constructive solution ”, TikTok sources assured the Financial Times newspaper over the weekend. "Instead," the sources continue, "we have found ourselves without due process, since the Administration has ignored the facts and has tried to interfere in negotiations between private companies."
On August 14, President Trump announced that he was giving ByteDance, owner of TikTok, 90 days to end its operations in the United States and dispose of the collected data. In addition to TikTok, the Trump Administration has taken action against other companies such as WeChat, messaging software that has evolved into a multi-service application. Trump even suggested that the US Treasury should receive a "large percentage" of the proceeds from the sale.
Thus, TikTok has explained that it has "no other option" but to "challenge the Executive Order through the judicial system" to "ensure that the rule of law is taken into account and users are treated fairly"
The lawsuit, which will focus specifically on the Aug. 6 order, will pay special attention to the U.S. government's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president a wide range of powers to regulate economic transactions in the event of a national emergency. This law was enacted in 1977 and has been invoked in recent years to impose sanctions on individuals and cybercriminals.
Wechat users, to court
The group of users of the Chinese messaging application WeChat, the most popular in the Asian country, has filed a lawsuit against the Administration of US President Donald Trump, over the recent executive order that threatens to ban the application in the United States. According to the lawsuit, which has been filed in federal court in San Francisco, the ban violates users' free speech rights under the First Amendment. The lawsuit also stresses that the ban is directed at the Chinese community in the United States. "President Trump has made numerous anti-Chinese statements that have contributed to and incited racial animosity against people of Chinese descent, all outside the context of national security," the lawsuit states, as reported by the Financial Times .
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