Q&A: Will the Trump administration be able to ban TikTok?

A federal judge on Sunday postponed a Trump administration order that would have banned the popular video sharing app TikTok from U.S. smartphone app stores.

A more comprehensive ban remains scheduled for November, about a week after the presidential election. But the judge, Carl Nichols of the U.S District Court for the District of Columbia, cast doubt on the government's argument that TikTok is a national security threat because of its ties to China.

The ruling followed an emergency hearing Sunday morning — hours before the app-store ban was set to take effect — in which lawyers for the Chinese-owned app argued that the ban would infringe on First Amendment rights and do irreparable harm to the business.

Here are some questions and answers about the dispute.

WHAT DID THE JUDGE SAY?

Nichols, who was appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump last year, said in a ruling unsealed Monday that the “government has provided ample evidence that China presents a significant national security threat.”

But he added there is “less substantial” evidence that TikTok itself presents such a threat or that a ban is an effective way to address it.

Trump is trying to use his emergency authority under a 1977 law enabling a U.S. president to regulate international commerce to address unusual threats. But Nichols said that law has an exception to protect personal communications and disseminating information across borders — which he said would include much of the content found on TikTok.

Nichols also sided with TikTok's arguments that the app-store ban would cause it to lose users and advertisers, driving them to “alternative platforms and eroding TikTok’s competitive position” even if TikTok were ultimately to win its case.

WHAT IS TIKTOK?

TikTok is a...