US court halts WeChat ban

A US judge early on Sunday blocked the Donald Trump administration from requiring Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google to remove Chinese-owned WeChat for downloads by late Sunday.

US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler in San Francisco said WeChat users who filed a lawsuit “have shown serious questions going to the merits of the First Amendment claim, the balance of hardships tips in the plaintiff’s favour”.

Her 22-page order added the prohibitions “burden substantially more speech than is necessary to serve the government’s significant interest in national security, especially given the lack of substitute channels for communication”.