It looks like the U.S. government is putting all stops on getting the ByteDance owned TikTok banned in the country. The government has now appealed a decision by District Court Judge Carl Nichols, which had issued a preliminary injunction against Trump administration’s order which would have effectively banned TikTok’s U.S operations.
President Donald Trump had issued an executive order against TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, suspecting nefarious ties with the Chinese government. He had also provided the company an ultimatum to sell off TikTok’s U.S. business to an indigenous company, if it wanted to avoid a ban on the platform.
However, the ban never came to fruition, as multiple court rulings have ruled against it since then. While TikTok had filed a lawsuit of its own months ago, it was a group of TikTok stars who managed to register the first win for the platform. Back in October, a federal judge in Pennsylvania issued an injunction, effectively stopping the November 12 ban on TikTok.
After this, on December 8th, Judge Carl Nichols said that the government “likely exceeded IEEPA’s express limitations as part of an agency action that was arbitrary and capricious,” putting yet another injunction on the TikTok ban. IEEPA or the International Emergency Economic Powers Act was cited in Trump’s executive order, along with National Emergencies Act.
The US Justice Department has already declared an appeal against the first order blocking the ban. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the government is taking a similar step against the second order as well.
“On December 7, 2020, the Court entered an order granting Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction. Defendants hereby appeal the Court’s Order to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.,” the appeal read.
With the Trump presidency coming to an end next month, the future of TikTok (and its controversial ban) will be decided by the new cabinet.
