U.S. president Donald Trump has had his executive order against Tencent’sWeChat halted by a judge.
As reported by Reuters, San Francisco-based magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler explained that those who filed the lawsuit “have shown serious questions going to the merits of the First Amendment claim, the balance of hardships tips in the plaintiffs’ favour.”
As such, she has blocked the Trump administration’s move to ban the Chinese app. Moreover, while Beeler acknowledged that the US government has legitimate concerns, the requested ban will “burden substantially more speech than is necessary to serve the government’s significant interest in national security, especially given the lack of substitute channels for communication.”
Blocking justice?
Last week, the US Justice Department implored Judge Beeler not to block the order as it would “frustrate and displace the president’s determination of how best to address threats to national security.”
Beeler stood her ground, and backed her decision as she explained “certainly the government’s overarching national-security interest is significant. But on this record — while the government has established that China’s activities raise significant national security concerns — it has put in scant little evidence that its effective ban of WeChat for all US users addresses those concerns.”
Moreover, she pointed out that another method of completing the ban would be to prevent the app from being available on government devices.
Removing Chinese apps
Of course, Tencent is not the only Chinese company to come under fire from president Trump and his administration, as an executive order to ban TikTok was also signed. However, the ByteDance-owned app has since entered a potential deal with software giant Oracle and Retail behemoth Walmart.
Although, the battle with Trump and the U.S. has been long for TikTok, and it all began when the country investigated the Chinese firm for breaching the privacy of children back in July.
