Despite the recent agreement between Walmart, Oracle, and ByteDance, it appears that the conflict between the Chinese social network TikTok and the U.S. government is still far from over. The platform has just entered the US court requesting that the banning lawsuit filed by the country’s Commerce Department be prevented from continuing.
The move appears to take inspiration from the WeChat case, whose users initiated a lawsuit in the state of California that could halt President Donald Trump’s banning procedures. Unlike the countrywide application, however, TikTok himself was the author of the process released today.
Filled on September 18, shortly after the US government postponed the ban so that the deal with Oracle and Walmart could be finalized, the lawsuit uses as an argument the fact that TikTok “made extraordinary efforts to try to satisfy the government’s ever-changing demands and mitigate alleged national security concerns, including changes in business structure and tenure, and continues to do so. ”
Other points touched on by TikTok also include the damage the ban will cause, “preventing millions of Americans from accessing the platform six weeks before the presidential elections”, in addition to an eventual excess of authority practiced by Trump and the Department of Commerce, an argument similar to that used by WeChat in its lawsuit.
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Although it seems unnecessary at first, the process started by TikTok can prove crucial for the permanence of the social network in the United States. That’s because, according to information from the TechCrunch website, China does not appear to be satisfied with the agreement reached with Walmart and Oracle, considering it an “extortion”. The Asian country had also shown dissatisfaction with the solution to the sale of US operations, claiming to prefer that TikTok be banned rather than sold.
