TikTok and its employees prepare to fight Trump over app ban
Published on 14th August, 2020 | 1 min read
TikTok and its US employees are planning to take President Donald Trump’s administration to court over his sweeping order to ban the popular video app, according to a lawyer preparing one of the lawsuits. Trump last week ordered sweeping but vague bans on dealings with the Chinese owners of TikTok and messaging app WeChat, saying they are a threat to US national security, foreign policy and the economy. The TikTok order would take effect in September, but it remains unclear what it will mean for the apps’ 100 million U.S. users, many of them teenagers or young adults who use it to post and watch short-form videos. The order would prohibit “Any transaction by any person” with TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance. TikTok didn’t return multiple requests for comment this week. The Fifth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution safeguard life, liberty and property from arbitrary government action lacking “Due process of law.” Microsoft is in talks to buy parts of TikTok, in a potential sale that’s being forced under Trump’s threat of a ban. The looming ban has annoyed TikTok users, some of them Trump supporters like Pam Graef of Metairie, Louisiana.
