Americans Rush To Download WeChat App In Advance Of Ban

WeChat users in the U.S. are racing to download the Chinese multi-purpose messaging, social media and mobile payment app, Reuters reported.

The surge comes as the U.S. Department of Commerce said Monday (Sept. 21) it will appeal a federal court ruling to block President Donald Trump’s executive order prohibiting the app.

Last week, the Commerce Department announced that the prohibitions on WeChat and TikTok transactions are based on the president’s executive order issued in August over national security concerns.

In the announcement, the agency alleged the Chinese Communist Party has demonstrated the means and motives to use these apps to threaten the national security, foreign policy and economy of the U.S. The ban seeks to protect U.S. users by eliminating access to these apps and reducing their functionality, the Commerce Department said.

But Tencent Holdings Ltd., WeChat’s parent company, challenged the ruling. A California federal judge has temporarily blocked Trump’s executive order prohibiting the WeChat app owned by China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd.

From Friday (Sept. 18) through Saturday (Sept, 19) WeChat was installed about 54,000 times, according to Sensor Tower, the San Francisco-based data analytics company. That’s 28 times the 1,900 downloads reported for the same two-day period one week before.

In addition, WeChat Work, the company’s office communication platform, saw 58,000 installs during the same two-day period. That was 193 times the 300 downloads it saw the prior week, according to Sensor Tower researchers.

The U.S. WeChat Users Alliance, the nonprofit founded by the app’s users in the U.S., filed suit last week against the Trump administration. The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, alleges Trump’s directive is unconstitutional and violates free speech.

“We think it would be unconstitutional to ban the use of the app if that’s what they finally come out with,” Michael Bien, one of the groups’ attorneys, told The Wall Street Journal. “If they take the app off the market, we will fight it.”

U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler issued a preliminary injunction Saturday (Sept. 19) blocked the ban on downloads in the U.S. that was scheduled to begin Sunday (Sept. 20).

Beeler said the U.S. government’s concerns about the national security threats are significant, but the evidence is modest.