WASHINGTON: Video-sharing social networking company TikTok filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over an executive order banning any US transactions with its parent company ByteDance.
In the 39-page indictment, US President Donald Trump, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and US Department of Commerce were listed as defendants, Xinhua news agency reported.
According to the document, TikTok accused the US authorities of stripping the rights of the company without any evidence to justify the extreme action, and issuing the order without any due process as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment while banning the company with no notice or opportunity to be heard.
The Los Angeles-based tech firm argued that the executive order is a misuse of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), authorizing the prohibition of activities that have not been found to be “an unusual and extraordinary threat” in this case.
TikTok argued that former presidents used power authorized by IEEPA to protect the country from threats from abroad, including terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, but this executive order seeks to use IEEPA against a US company with hundreds of employees across the country and to destroy an online community sharing video content by millions of Americans.
According to the company, as of June 2020, the total number of monthly active users in the country soared to 91,937,040, and based on quarterly usage, 100 million Americans used the application to express themselves and connect with each other.
(With inputs from Agencies)
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