On Sunday, a U.S. judge’s ruling ahead of a midnight deadline means TikTok, and prospective TikTok users hoping to download the app in the future, will live to dance another day. According to NPR, Judge Carl Nichols, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, granted a partial preliminary injunction against President Trump’s August 6 executive order against the app. The White House has declared that TikTok’s Chinese owners ByteDance must sell the app to a company based in the United States or risk being banned, citing concerns over the app allegedly sharing user information with the Chinese government, or otherwise posing a national security threat, a claim TikTok maintains is false.
However, Nichols declined TikTok’s request to extend the government’s upcoming November 12 deadline, the ostensible final date by which the app’s U.S. operations must be owned by a company based in the United States.
“We will continue defending our rights for the benefit of our community and employees,†a spokeswoman for TikTok said in a statement. “At the same time, 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.â€
As for that proposal, investors including Oracle and Walmart received approval from Trump last week to purchase TikTok, but currently remain at odds with ByteDance itself over the structure of the deal and whether the Chinese-based company would retain any control over the app.
“I am very happy that the court has granted an injunction preventing the implementation of the TikTok ban that would have prohibited new users to download the app,†TikTok interim head Vanessa Pappas tweeted on Sunday. “We will continue to seek to protect the rights of our users, partners, artists, employees, businesses, and creators.†The Commerce Department agreed to comply with Sunday’s injunction; TikTok can operate as usual until the case has a full hearing, which has not yet been scheduled.