TikTok Sues Trump Administration After Trump Tries to Block It Within the U.S.

“We do not take suing the government lightly, however we feel we have no choice but to take action to protect our rights, and the rights of our community and employees,” the company said in its suit. “Our more than 1,500 employees across the U.S. pour their hearts into building this platform every day,” the company said, noting that it planned to hire more than 10,000 more workers across eight states in the coming years.

TikTok says the Trump administration “failed to follow due process and act in good faith, neither providing evidence that TikTok was an actual threat, nor justification for its punitive actions.” Moreover, the company says that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States’s determination that TikTok posed a national security threat was based on “outdated news articles” and not on documentation TikTok provided outlining the security of user data.

President Trump earlier this month issued two executive orders to prohibit any transactions with WeChat or TikTok by any person or involving any property subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. The president said WeChat, made by Tencent, and TikTok, made by ByteDance, were being used by the Chinese Communist Party to obtain Americans’ proprietary information, to surveil Chinese citizens abroad, and spearhead disinformation campaigns. 

“The spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People’s Republic of China (China) continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States,” the president wrote.