TikTok has confirmed that they are going ahead with their plans to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration.
The lawsuit is in response to the administration’s executive order demanding parent company ByteDance deprive its TikTok operations in the United States.
Trump’s administration signed an executive order on August 6th to block all transactions with ByteDance in an attempt to “address the national emergency with respect to the information and communication technology supply chain.”
The order was planned to take effect on August 14th, 45 days from the initial singing. Trump initially said an American company such as Microsoft needed to purchase TikTok from Chinese owned ByteDance in order to fix current privacy, data and security concerns.
The move to sue has been rumoured for several weeks, however, reports began to surface on Friday that the lawsuit was definite, with the TikTok spokesman Josh Gartner saying, “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.”
“Even though we strongly disagree with the administration’s concerns, for nearly a year we have sought to engage in good faith to provide a constructive solution. What we encountered instead was a lack of due process as the administration paid no attention to facts and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses.”
TikTok is currently one of the most popular social media apps on the market, with over 800 million users worldwide.