TikTok
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Video app TikTok announced on Saturday it will challenge in court a Trump administration crackdown on the service, which Washington accuses of being a national security threat.

Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order giving Americans 45 days to stop doing business with TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance -- effectively setting a deadline for a potential pressured sale of the viral video sensation to a US company.

"Even though we strongly disagree with the Administration's concerns, for nearly a year we have sought to engage in good faith to provide a constructive solution. What we encountered instead was a lack of due process as the Administration paid no attention to facts and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses," TikTok said in a statement quoted by AFP.

"To ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and users are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the Executive Order through the judicial system," it added.

Trump says TikTok could be used by China to track the locations of federal employees, build dossiers on people for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.

The company has said it has never provided any US user data to the Chinese government, and China has blasted Trump's crackdown as political.

The Trump administration has also given ByteDance a 90-day deadline to divest in TikTok before the app is banned in the United States.