MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th September, 2020) A US Federal judge has blocked the ban of President Donald Trump's administration on the downloads of TikTok, a video-sharing app owned by Chinese company ByteDance, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The ban was supposed to take effect on Sunday night, but Judge Carl Nichols of the US District Court in Washington, DC granted a preliminary injunction sought by ByteDance to allow TikTok to remain available for download in the US, the newspaper reported on Sunday.
Earlier in the week, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, acting on the White House's instruction, announced that downloads of TikTok and WeChat - another social media application run by China's Tencent - would be restricted from Apple's Playstore and Android's Google Play beginning on September 20.
Trump's ban of TikTok was set for September 20, but has been postponed to November 12 as the administration offered the company a way out by being acquired by a US entity. The US president said software firm Oracle and retail giant Walmart were in final talks for control of TikTok's equity and technology. However, ByteDance has insisted on maintaining an 80 percent stake in the restructured US version of TikTok.
