The administration of new US President Joe Biden has requested and received a suspension in the lawsuit against TikTok and WeChat. It was brought by the Donald Trump administration because it saw the Chinese apps as a threat to national security.
The Donald Trump administration has sought a ban on TikTok and WeChat, but the Biden administration now says it needs time to investigate. The Department of Commerce says it will examine the motivations for the ban on the apps, as outlined in Donald Trump’s Executive Order on August 6, 2020. “A reconsideration of this ban could mean that the court has less or no work on this case,” it said. The Department of Commerce wants to provide a status update every sixty days. The motion was put online by Jurist.org, among others, and the White House press officer provided additional comment.
Last year, ex-President Trump argued that the data collection of the two apps led to a trade ban with the companies behind them. “This data collection threatens to give the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ private information, which they may use to track down officials’ locations, build files for blackmail and conduct corporate espionage.”
The previous administration was willing to lift the ban on TikTok if an American company took over the operations of the social medium in the country. A prominent candidate for that was the combination of Walmart and Oracle, but due to the changing circumstances that come with a new president, that acquisition has reportedly been postponed indefinitely.
Meanwhile, Chinese companies are not sitting still either. They have also gone to court to challenge the trade ban. So far that has been successful: the apps have not yet gone black in the country. Donald Trump also took action against Huawei, DJI and chip maker SMIC under the guise of protecting national security.