Trump administration appeals order blocking TikTok restrictions

The Donald Trump administration in the US has appealed against a federal judge’s order that blocked restrictions on TikTok from taking effect in the country.

The US Department of Justice appealed the order to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Monday, The Verge reported.

The appeal was filed against the 7 December order by US District Judge Carl Nichols which blocked the US Commerce Department from putting restrictions that it had planned to impose on the short video-sharing platform owned by Chinese unicorn ByteDance.

The order came in response to a challenge to the Trump administration’s executive order on 6 August that would have barred US companies from doing transactions with ByteDance.

Nichols granted TikTok’s motion for a preliminary injunction against the items that the Commerce Department was planning to prohibit.

His order comes after US judge Wendy Beetlestone in Pennsylvania—in a suit brought by some TikTok users—barred the same restrictions that were set to go into effect on 12 November.

Earlier, on 27 September, Nichols granted TikTok a preliminary injunction that allowed people to continue downloading the app.

The Trump administration cited national security concerns to bring restrictions on TikTok’s US operations.

Although the platform denied the allegations, another order from the administration required ByteDance to sell or spin off TikTok operations in the US, leading to talks with prospective buyers in the country.

While a proposed deal with Oracle for the sale of TikTok’s US assets was submitted, not much is known about the final approval of the deal.