U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has insisted on the need to ban TikTok due to national security concerns in a new court filing ahead of a plan to make the video app unavailable on November 12. The filing comes as the court considers the legality of the administration’s bid to make the Chinese-owned app unavailable in the United States, where it has 100 million users. “The president should not be prevented from regulating national security threats simply because a foreign adversary cloaks its activities within a media company,” the filing on Friday at a federal court in Washington says. US President Donald Trump administration said on October 23 that it has the authority to ban the use of Chinese-owned ByteDance’s video-sharing app, TikTok in the United States. As per CNET report, Trump lawyers in a court filing reiterated that the popular app poses a national security threat. Therefore, it added that the US government should be permitted to impose the restrictions that are in line with the authority of Trump to safeguard the nation’s security. US government lawyers reportedly also said that limiting the authority of the president defies the law and also the past rulings. In the 46-page filing in US District Court Washington DC, the lawyers emphasised that US President “should not be prevented from regulation national-security threats simply because a foreign adversary cloaks its activities within a media company.” With US Elections being just around the corner, Trump lawyers moving to court is the latest development in the administration’s push for seeking a ban of the app.
The Trump administration is seeking to persuade the judge in the case to allow it to move forward with restrictions on the video-sharing app, which it claims has links to the Chinese government through its parent firm ByteDance. In September, a temporary injunction prevented the government from removing TikTok from mobile application download platforms. That Trump administration order had sought to ban new downloads of the app but continue to allow use of TikTok until November 12, when all usage would be blocked. The judge at the time denied TikTok’s request to suspend the November 12 ban, but the court has yet to consider the merits of the legal arguments on whether the social platform should remain available to Americans. TikTok has repeatedly defended itself against allegations of data transfers to the Chinese government. It says its servers where user information is stored are located in the United States and Singapore. The company has also said the ban is unnecessary since negotiations are underway to restructure the ownership of TikTok to address national security issues raised by the administration. A tentative deal has been unveiled that would make Silicon Valley giant Oracle the technology partner for TikTok and a stakeholder in a new entity to be known as TikTok Global.
