A US judge has issued a temporary injunction preventing a ban on future downloads of the TikTok app.
The app had faced being blocked from Apple’s App Store and Android’s Google Play marketplace from 04:59 Nigerian time, Monday September 28.
Existing US-based users would have been able to continue using it.
But they would not have been able to re-download the app if they deleted it from their phones, nor have been offered software updates.
Judge Carl Nichols of the US District Court for the District of Columbia issued a temporary injunction on Sunday evening at the request of TikTok.
The opinion was sealed, meaning that no reason for the decision was released.
In a statement, TikTok said it was pleased with the decision, and vowed to keep defending its rights.
“We’re pleased that the court agreed with our legal arguments and issued an injunction preventing the implementation of the TikTok app ban,” the statement said.
TikTok had argued that forcing it off the iOS and Android app stores would have violated the First and Fifth Amendments of the US constitution.
It claimed that preventing some users joining the app unlawfully impinged upon their freedom of speech and that the firm’s own right to due process would have been breached by not giving it a proper opportunity to defend itself first.
“How does it make sense to impose this app store ban tonight when there are negotiations underway that might make it unnecessary?” added a member of the app’s legal team.
The US government’s lawyers in turn had described the app’s parent as being “a mouthpiece” for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The ruling comes one week after another Chinese app – WeChat – that also faced a ban, was given its own last minute reprieve by the US courts.
The long-term fate of TikTok in the US is still unclear. At present it is owned by a Chinese company, Bytedance, but operated as a separate entity to Douyin – a parallel version used by Chinese consumers.
The Trump administration has claimed Bytedance’s involvement poses an unacceptable national security threat, because it would have to comply with an order to support the CCP’s “malicious collection of American citizens’ personal data”.
Bytedance denies this, saying that TikTok’s user data is kept in the US and Singapore, and so is not subject to Chinese law.
Even so, after being threatened with a ban, a week ago TikTok said that it had agreed a deal to let database company Oracle and retail giant Walmart take up to a 20% stake in a new spun-off entity called TikTok Global ahead of shares in the endeavour being floated.
But President Trump subsequently said he would not accept any arrangement that did not involve Bytedance ceding control to the two US firms.
TikTok’s statement on Monday suggested negotiations over the deal were still ongoing.
“We will also maintain our ongoing dialogue with the government to turn our proposal, which the President gave his preliminary approval to last weekend, into an agreement,” it said.
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