US magistrate judge Laurel Beeler granted an injunction halting the effect of the Department of Commerce order, which had rendered WeChat unusable in the US
The US government’s ban on downloads of the Chinese-owned WeChat app has been halted by a judge on free speech grounds.
WeChat is a messaging, social media and payments app used by a billion people monthly, most of them in China. It fell foul of the Trump administration’s crackdown on Chinese digital platforms, announced on Friday.
The US Department of Commerce banned business transactions with WeChat and TikTok, a video social network more widely popular in the west, effectively banning them from appearing in app marketplaces operating in the US, such as Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store.
However, US magistrate judge Laurel Beeler in California, said WeChat users had shown “serious questions going to the merits of the First Amendment claim” in a lawsuit they filed in an effort to overturn the ban.
She granted an injunction halting the effect of the Department of Commerce order, which had other provisions rendering WeChat unusable in the US.
The administration is yet to comment.
TikTok, which was also hit with a crackdown, reached a deal with US corporations Oracle and Walmart which will allow it to continue to be used in the United States by separating it from its Chinese owner.
The Trump administration has acted in response to its narrative that Chinese technology companies, such as Tencent and the phone-maker and 5G provider Huawei, are too close to that country’s government, leading to security issues for the US and the West in general.
The digital crackdown comes in the context of a years-long trade war between Donald Trump and China, with the two nations trading tariffs on goods from soy beans to electronics.
Tencent, which owns WeChat, also owns Riot Games, which makes the popular esports game League of Legends, and 40 per cent of Epic Games, which makes Fortnite.
There are fears that future rounds of action could result in their removal from US marketplaces, or their separation from their Chinese owners a la TikTok.