TikTok blasts Trump ban as illogical

US president's move would remove video app used by 19 million Americans from Apple and Android stores 

 Chantel Jeffries onstage during the TikTok US launch celebration at NeueHouse Hollywood on August 1, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. Photo: Joe Scarnici/Getty Images

A lawyer for TikTok told a federal judge that President Donald Trump’s impending ban on the video-sharing app is irrational given that its Chinese owner is in talks to strike a deal the president himself has demanded.

“How does it make sense to impose this app-store ban tonight when there are negotiations underway that might make it unnecessary?” attorney John Hall asked at an unusual Sunday morning hearing on TikTok’s request to temporarily block the ban.

Prohibition

The prohibition would remove TikTok from the app stores run by Apple and Google’s Android, the most widely used marketplaces for downloadable apps. 

People who don’t yet have the app wouldn’t be able to get it, and those who already have it wouldn’t have access to updates needed to ensure its safe and smooth operation. TikTok is used regularly by 19 million Americans.

The app’s owner, ByteDance is fighting the Trump administration in court even as it pursues its approval for the sale of a stake in its US operations to Oracle and Walmart under pressure from the president. 

President Trump has called for bans on both TikTok and WeChat, owned by China’s Tencent Holdings, arguing that the apps could give China’s government access to millions of Americans’ personal data.

The bans are part of an increasingly hardline the president has taken on Beijing as the election approaches.

Mr Hall said banning TikTok from US app stores would undermine security by preventing existing users from receiving weekly security updates. 

He argued that the US government has less burdensome alternatives, such as the stake sale, to achieve its national-security aims.

If that prohibition goes into effect at midnight tonight, the consequences immediately are grave,” Hall told U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington. “It would be no different than the government locking the doors to a public forum, roping off that town square.

His language echoed the ruling of a judge in California who put a hold on President Trump’s WeChat ban last week.

Daniel Schwei, a lawyer for the Justice Department, countered that “the concern here is about data security risk and leaving data vulnerable to the Chinese government".