TikTok and WeChat both managed to avoid their Sunday bans
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Friday, it looked like the US was ready to ban new downloads of TikTok and WeChat, two popular China-based apps that the Trump administration warned posed security threats to American users. The Commerce Department issued an order that would have prohibited new downloads as of Sunday. And on Saturday WeChat in particular saw a sharp uptick in new installs in the US, according to analytics platform Sensor Tower, with an 800 percent week-over-week increase.
But as of Sunday afternoon, each has received a reprieve from a US ban, at least temporarily. President Trump said Saturday he had given a deal between TikTok, Oracle, and Walmart his blessing," prompting a one-week delay from the Commerce Department on TikTok's ban. And a judge in...