US judge halts Donald Trump administration’s order to get rid of WeChat from app stores
US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler in San Francisco said in an order that WeChat users who filed a lawsuit “have shown serious questions getting to the merits of the primary Amendment claim, the balance of hardships tips within the plaintiffs’ favor.”
The messenger app WeChat is seen among U.S. flags during this illustration picture taken Aug. 7, 2020. (Reuters)
A US judge early Sunday blocked the Trump administration from requiring Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google to get rid of Chinese-owned messaging app WeChat for downloads by late Sunday.
US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler in San Francisco said in an order that WeChat users who filed a lawsuit “have shown serious questions getting to the merits of the primary Amendment claim, the balance of hardships tips within the plaintiffs’ favor.”
Her 22-page order added the prohibitions “burden substantially more speech than is important to serve the government’s significant interest in national security, especially given the shortage of substitute channels for communication.”
On Friday, the US Department of Commerce had issued a order citing national security grounds to dam the app from US app stores owned by Tencent Holding’s and therefore the Department of Justice had urged Beeler to not block the order. Tencent and therefore the Department of Justice didn’t immediately comment.
Beeler’s preliminary injunction also blocked the Commerce order that might have barred other transactions with WeChat within the us that would have dramatically degraded the site’s usability for current US users or potentially made it unusable. The US Department of Commerce didn’t immediately comment.
WeChat has had a mean of 19 million daily active users within the us , analytics firms Apptopia said in early August. it’s popular among Chinese students, Americans living in China and a few Americans who have personal or business relationships in China.
The Department of Justice said blocking the order would “frustrate and displace the president’s determination of how best to deal with threats to national security.”
Beeler wrote “certainly the government’s overarching national-security interest is critical . But on this record — while the govt has established that China’s activities raise significant national security concerns — it’s put in scant little evidence that its effective ban of WeChat for all US users addresses those concerns.”
WeChat is an all-in-one mobile app that mixes services almost like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Venmo. The app is an important a part of lifestyle for several in China and boasts quite 1 billion users.
The Department of Justice also argued that WeChat users could switch to other apps or platforms.
The WeChat Users Alliance that had sued praised the ruling “as a crucial and hard-fought victory” for “millions of WeChat users within the US”
Michael Bien, a lawyer for the users, said “the us has never pack up a serious platform for communications, not even during war times. There are serious First Amendment problems with the WeChat ban, which targets the Chinese American community.”
He added the order “trampled on their First Amendment guaranteed freedoms to talk , to worship, to read and react to the press, and to arrange and associate for varied purposes.”
Beeler also noted “there are obvious alternatives to an entire ban, like barring WeChat from government devices.
She added “The regulation — which eliminates a channel of communication with none apparent substitutes — burdens substantially more speech than is important to further the government’s significant interest.”
Separately, the Department of Commerce late Saturday said it had been delaying enforcement of another order issued Friday that might even have banned US app stores from offering TikTok starting late Sunday.
The one-week delay came after US President Donald Trump on Saturday blessed a affect TikTok owner ByteDance and US companies Oracle Corp and Walmart Inc to make a replacement company to handle TikTok’s US operations.
