TikTok filed an injunction in a U.S. Appeals Court late Tuesday night in an attempt to halt an order by the Trump administration that would force the app to shutter.
In the August 14 executive order, Trump directed the app to prohibit all new downloads beginning on Sept. 30, with parent company ByteDance being forced to fully divest from TikTok by November 12. But as that deadline quickly approaches, the company says it’s heard radio silence from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFUIS) on whether or not the divesture is actually set to take place.
“Facing continual new requests and no clarity on whether our proposed solutions would be accepted, we requested the 30-day extension that is expressly permitted in the August 14 order,” the company said in a statement. “…without an extension in hand, we have no choice but to file a petition in court to defend our rights.”
— TikTok_Comms (@tiktok_comms) November 11, 2020
TikTok has filed two previous injunctions against the executive order, both of which were successful, but getting the CFIUS order thrown out entirely will likely be a much higher legal bar to clear.
In its statement, the company noted that it has, “…actively engaged with CFIUS in good faith to address its national security concerns, even as we disagree with its assessment.”
“In the nearly two months since the President gave his preliminary approval to our proposal to satisfy those concerns, we have offered detailed solutions to finalise that agreement – but have received no substantive feedback on our extensive data privacy and security framework,” the statement continued.
A previously discussed deal between ByteDance, venture capital firm Oracle and Walmart was approved by U.S. President Trump back in September, but in the intervening weeks there’s been no word on whether or not the deal is still in play.