U.S. Department of Commerce Delays TikTok Ban

The U.S. Department of Commerce announced on Thursday, that it will not shut down the TikTok app following an initial court order granted by a Philadelphia judge to TikTok in late October, according to Wall Street Journal report.

According to the judge, "the US government's own descriptions of the threat to national security posed by the  application are hypothetically expressed. For that reason, it cannot be confirmed that the risk presented by the government outweighs the public interest”.

Earlier, the U.S. President Donald Trump issued ban on the two Chinese apps, TikTok and WeChat, describing the decision as “political manipulation and repression.” Trump announced the closure of these two platforms within a period of 45 days, amid increasing tension between the United States and China.

In addition, Trump signed two executive orders on August, preventing financial dealings after 45 days with the owners of the “TikTok” and “WeChat” applications, on suspicion of being exploited by China.

The two executive orders came after President Trump’s administration said it was stepping up efforts to remove “untrusted” Chinese apps from U.S. app stores, and described TikTok and WeChat as “major threats.”

Noteworthy, the Chinese version of TikTok app surpassed 600 million daily active users in August, rising from 400 million at the start of the year.

According to China Chief Executive Officer Kelly Zhang, the service produced 41.7 billion yuan, in revenue for more than 22 million creators over the past year and the company intends to spend US$1.5bil, in a push to double that figure over the next 12 months.

Also, its currently one of the most popular social media apps in China and its growth is seen as indicative of TikTok’s potential evolution.

In contrast, China’s messaging app WeChat, which is owned by Tencent Holdings, reported it had over 1 billion users using the app everyday in 2018. China had 1.6 billion monthly active mobile internet users as of May, according to market researcher QuestMobile.