Appeals court holding Dec 14 hearing on blocked U.S. TikTok new user ban

WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court in Washington said on Wednesday it will hold Dec. 14 oral arguments on the government's appeal of an order that blocked a ban on Apple Inc and Alphabet’s Google offering TikTok for download in U.S. app stores.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington on Sept. 27 blocked the Commerce Department order hours before it was to prohibit new downloads of the Chinese-owned short video-sharing app TikTok.

The Trump administration last week extended to Friday a deadline for Chinese TikTok parent ByteDance to sell TikTok's U.S. assets. (Reporting by David Shepardson Editing by Chris Reese)