WeChat users will not be penalised even if Chinese app is banned, US Justice Department says
- Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is set to release regulations by Sunday clarifying what WeChat transactions will be prohibited
- US WeChat users are seeking an injunction to bar the Trump administration from prohibiting the use of WeChat by individual users, businesses and groups
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is set to release regulations by Sunday clarifying what WeChat transactions will be prohibited.
03:07
Stop offering ‘untrusted’ Chinese apps like TikTok and WeChat, Washington urges US tech companies
The Justice Department responded in a filing on Wednesday that Ross does not plan to target persons or groups who only download or use WeChat to convey personal or business information and said they would not face criminal or civil penalties.
WeChat users want to see evidence behind Trump’s ban on app
But the department added that “use of the app for such communications could be directly or indirectly impaired through measures targeted at other transactions.”
The WeChat users who sued said the order apparently prohibits “millions of WeChat users in the United States … from using the most popular social media space for Chinese speakers in the world.”
WeChat has been downloaded 19 million times in the United States, showed data from Sensor Tower, but in China, the app is ubiquitous as a medium for services, games and payments.
Trump’s order said WeChat “automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users,” which “threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information.”
