A US judge has ruled in favour of those that filed a motion to halt the banning of WeChat, which was set to take place on 20 September. This means Apple and Google do not have to remove Tencent's WeChat app from their respective stores.
A judge from the District Court for the Northern District of California said the plaintiffs showed “the merits of the first Amendment claim” and that the “balance of hardships” tips in their favour, Reuters reported. The court’s ruling provides a preliminary-injunctive relief on the impending ban. The ruling also blocks an order by the US Department of Commerce that would have stopped other transactions with WeChat in the US and which would have degraded the site’s usability for US users.
The judge noted that "while the general evidence about the threat to national security related to China is considerable, the specific evidence about WeChat is modest."
The US Commerce Department is expected to challenge the ruling further in court. It had said earlier that the ban on business with WeChat and TikTok was to take effect from 20 September and issued an order for the apps to be removed from app stores from that date. Following an agreement on Oracle and Walmart buying part of TikTok, it extended the date for TikTok by one week, to 27 September.
