Legal Nerdery on Trump’s TikTok Executive Order

Alan Rozenshtein, writing for Lawfare:

While Apple and Google maintained their compliance, Oracle and Akamai made the remarkable decision to resume services, despite facing potentially catastrophic liability rates. Shortly after his inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump followed through by issuing an executive order that suspended PAFACAA enforcement for 75 days and attempted to provide retroactive protection for any violations before and during the nonenforcement period.

TikTok’s tech partners face a key executive power question: Can they rely on Trump’s promises not to enforce PAFACAA? If companies continue providing services to TikTok, can Trump later change his mind and pursue enforcement actions against them for all accumulated violations? Could a future administration enforce these violations regardless of Trump’s current promises? The stakes are enormous — nearly a trillion dollars in potential liability. Unfortunately for the companies, established legal doctrine suggests that they are making a remarkably risky bet on both the scope and durability of executive non-enforcement promises.

Here we are on Wednesday and ByteDance apps remain out of both Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store.

★ Wednesday, 22 January 2025