US Judge halts Trump administration’s ban on WeChat downloads

WASHINGTON: A United States (US) judge today (Sunday) halted the Trump administration’s ban on downloads of Chinese-owned app WeChat, hours before it was due to take effect.

The move blocks the Commerce Department from forcing Apple and Alphabet’s Google to remove Tencent Holding’s WeChat for downloads by Sunday evening.

In a statement, U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler in California said, “WeChat users who filed a lawsuit have shown serious questions going to the merits of the First Amendment claim, the balance of hardships tips in the plaintiffs favor.”

The preliminary injunction also blocked the Commerce order that would have barred other transactions with WeChat in the United States that could have degraded the site’s usability for current U.S. users.

Earlier on Saturday, the United States ordered a ban on downloads of popular video app TikTok and blocked the use of the Chinese super-app WeChat on national security grounds. In this regard, President Trump said that he had approved a deal allowing Silicon Valley giant Oracle to become the data partner for hugely popular TikTok to avert a shutdown of that app.

The deal includes Walmart as a commercial partner and would create a new US company named TikTok Global. TikTok — owned by China’s ByteDance — confirmed the agreement. The US Department of Commerce later announced that it was postponing the ban on TikTok downloads until September 27, due to recent positive developments.