TikTok won’t be banned Sunday night. Federal judge Carl Nichols agreed to uphold an emergency injunction filed by the makers of the popular application to temporarily halt the ban as it continues working with Oracle to reach a deal to appease Donald Trump and his Department of Justice. The latest case in the hearing was held at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday and Nichols spent most of the day deliberating as to whether or not the ban would still take place. For now, TikTok will remain in app stores until another development takes place.
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After Trump raised concerns over potential security vulnerabilities involved with a Chinese-owned app quickly becoming one of the most popular pieces of software stateside, the politician ordered his Commerce Department to ban downloads of the app beginning September 20th. Shortly thereafter, ByteDance — the group that owns and operates TikTok — agreed to bring Oracle and Walmart on to help shore up the aforementioned vulnerabilities. As it stands now, the deal isn’t a flat-out sale of TikTok to American-based companies — rather, a deal where American companies help implement certain security measures.
Ity’s unclear how long this injunction will last. It should also be noted a deal between ByteDance and Oracle is not guaranteed as the deal has not closed, the parties have simply agreed in principle to proceeded with talks. Shortly after news first broke of Oracle’s potential deal to secure rights to the company, Oracle chief Safra Catz released a statement reassuring the administration they’d do everything in their power to make sure American data remained secure.
“We are a hundred percent confident in our ability to deliver a highly secure environment to TikTok and ensure data privacy to TikTok’s American users, and users throughout the world,” Catz said via a statement. “This greatly improved security and guaranteed privacy will enable the continued rapid growth of the TikTok user community to benefit all stakeholders.”
