According to the tech website theverge A judge in California has rejected an invitation from the Department of Justice to reverse a previous decision allowing WeChat to stay active in US app stores. US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler said new evidence the govt presented didn’t change her opinion about the messaging app, owned by Chinese company Tencent app. WeChat will remain active in US app stores for the nonce .
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“The record doesn’t support the conclusion that the govt has ‘narrowly tailored’ the prohibited transactions to guard its national-security interests,” Beeler wrote in her decision. The evidence “supports the conclusion that the restrictions ‘burden substantially more speech than is important to further the government’s legitimate interests.’” President Trump issued an executive order in August to ban WeChat, invoking the Emergency Economic Powers Act and therefore the National Emergencies Act.
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The administration also sought to ban video sharing app TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, on an equivalent grounds, and President Trump demanded the corporate be sold. But instead of a purchase , a tentative agreement made Oracle TikTok’s trusted technology partner within the US, and created a replacement entity called TikTok Global. The deal has not yet been finalized. On September 27th, US District Judge Carl Nichols granted a preliminary injunction against a ban on new downloads of TikTok within the US hours before it might have taken effect.
Tencent can collect a “digital facsimile of a person’s life” on WeChat, Department of Justice attorney Serena Orloff said at a hearing earlier this month, furthering the administration’s position that Tencent is connected to the Chinese Communist Party .
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Beeler’s earlier order blocked the Department of Commerce ban folks transactions on WeChat. And while the govt claimed it’s identified “significant” threats to national security, Beeler didn’t appear persuaded. She said in her September 20th order that a gaggle of WeChat users calling themselves the WeChat Alliance had demonstrated there have been “serious questions” about whether the ban would potentially violate their First Amendment rights.
The group, which isn’t officially connected to WeChat, said there’s no alternative app which will do everything WeChat does, and argued it’s the first way for Chinese speakers within the US to attach with family in China also as receive information locally. WeChat has some 19 million US users and 1 billion users globally.
The Department of Justice has appealed Beeler’s decision to the Ninth Circuit, but a choice isn’t expected before December.