US Commerce Department delays TikTok ban following court ruling

TikTok will live to see another day. According to The Wall Street Journal, the US Department of Commerce won’t push through an order that would have forced the platform to shut down today. The agency cited a preliminary injunction a judge in Philadelphia granted TikTok in late October when a group of influencers on the platform brought a lawsuit against the federal government. The Commerce Department said it won’t enforce the order “pending further legal developments.” There are currently two ongoing legal cases in which TikTok is involved as it tries to avoid a complete ban. 

Leading up to this most recent development, the Trump’s administration’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) had set today as the deadline for TikTok parent company ByteDance to divest itself of its US assets. In September, the company put forward a proposed deal that would see Oracle and Wal-Mart claim a 20 percent stake in a newly formed TikTok Global entity. President Trump approved the agreement “in concept,” but there’s been little movement on it ever since. In fact, in recent weeks CFIUS has reportedly stopped communicating with TikTok as the company has tried to hammer out the details of its agreement with Oracle.