The U.S. government announced on Nov. 12 that it will delay the enforcement of a ban on Chinese-owned social media app TikTok.

The order was originally set to take effect on Nov. 12.

According to the The Guardian, the U.S. commerce department said it was holding off on the ban "pending further legal developments".

Bytedance launches petition

TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, was originally required to divest TikTok by Nov. 12.

On Nov. 10, the company filed a petition seeking a court review of the divestment order, and a 30-day extension on discussions, reported BBC.

According to Reuters, the company claimed that the order and a finding by the U.S. agency — that TikTok represented a security threat — were unlawful and violated rights under the U.S. Constitution.

ByteDance has been in talks with Walmart Inc and Oracle Corp to shift TikTok's U.S. assets into a new entity.

However, the issue that persists is the ownership structure of the new entity they are looking to create.

A person briefed on the matter also told Reuters that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) stopped responding to ByteDance after Trump's last public comment on TikTok on Sep. 19.

TikTok also said on Nov. 10 that it has “received no substantive feedback on our extensive data privacy and security framework”.

App store ban delayed late last month

The TikTok app was originally supposed to be removed from app stores on Sep. 20.

This was then delayed to Sep. 27 after Trump approved of the possible sale to Oracle Corp.

On Sep. 23, ByteDance filed for a temporary block on the app store ban.

On Sep. 27, the U.S. courts ruled in favour of TikTok, allowing the app to remain on app stores as ByteDance continued its discussions.

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Top image adapted from TikTok and Getty.