In an official statement issued following the decision, TikTok said that it was happy with the latest developments. According to a company spokesperson: “We’re pleased that the court agreed with our legal arguments and issued an injunction preventing the implementation of the TikTok app ban. We will continue defending our rights for the benefit of our community and employees. At the same time, we will also maintain our ongoing dialogue with the government to turn our proposal, which the president gave his preliminary approval to last weekend, into an agreement”. On its part, the US Commerce Department said that it would comply with the court’s ruling. According to a press statement released by the department, it has “taken immediate steps to do so, but intends to vigorously defend the E.O. and the secretary’s implementation efforts from legal challenges”. US President, Donald Trump, last month signed an executive order banning all transactions with Chinese companies WeChat and ByteDance. The ban would have also required Apple and Google to remove the apps from their respective online stores in the US. While the ban originally slated to go into effect September 18th, the US Commerce Department announced that it is delaying it by a week to let ByteDance and Oracle sort out the nitty gritty of the latter’s proposed takeover of TikTok’s US operations.
