Tiktok mulls to challenge US crackdown in court

PTI, Aug 23, 2020, 8:24 AM IST

New York: Video app TikTok said Saturday, August 22 that it will challenge in court a Trump administration crackdown on the popular Chinese-owned service, which Washington accuses of being a national security threat.

As tensions soar between the world’s two biggest economies, US President Donald Trump has claimed TikTok could be used by China to track the locations of federal employees, build dossiers on people for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.

Trump signed an executive order on August 6 giving Americans 45 days to stop doing business with TikTok’s Chinese parent company, Bytedance.

That is the order the video-sharing platform will target in its suit.

“To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the Executive Order through the judicial system,” TikTok said in a statement.

TikTok has repeatedly denied being any threat to US security, and Beijing has called the Trump crackdown political manipulation.