TikTok: US judge stops app store ban

A US judge has canceled the block on TikTok as he issued a temporary injunction.

TikTok had faced being removed from Apple Store and Google Play at midnight in Washington DC.

US-based users would be allowed to use the app, but they would not be able to re-download the app if they had deleted it from the phones.

According to BBC, Judge Carl Nichols of the US District Court for the District of Columbia issued a temporary injunction on Sunday evening at the request of TikTok.

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The opinion was sealed. TikTok acknowledged the move and promised to work for its rights.

“We’re pleased that the court agreed with our legal arguments and issued an injunction preventing the implementation of the TikTok app ban,” it said in a statement.

The video-sharing app had claimed that compelling it off iOS and Android app stores would have violated the First and Fifth Amendments of the US constitution.

The app’s legal team claimed that preventing some users from using the app affects their freedom of speech. It said that the company’s own right to due process would have been breached by not giving it a proper opportunity to defend itself first.

“How does it make sense to impose this app store ban tonight when there are negotiations underway that might make it unnecessary?”

On the other hand, the US government’s lawyers in turn had called the app’s parent company as being “a mouthpiece” for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).