Is TikTok banned in India? Find out more about the app and its background

TikTok, the video-sharing app, has taken over the world, thanks to the lip-syncing feature along with its facility of making short entertaining videos. However, after the tensions between China and India, there has been a demand for the ban on Chinese products and apps in India.

Many Chinese apps have created problems of stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorised manner to servers outside India, and TikTok is also one of them.

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Is TikTok banned in India?

The Indian Government has issued an order that bans over 50 Chinese Apps in India. This is done keeping in mind that the apps are engaged in activities that could harm the sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order, as stated by the MHA notification issued. Topping this list of banned apps is TikTok. Below is the notification along with the appendix list of Chinese apps banned:

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About TikTok

TikTok is based in China and is a Chinese video-sharing social networking app that is owned by a company named ByteDance. The company is an internet technology company that is based in Beijing and was founded in the year 2012 by Zhang Yiming. ByteDance first launched TikTok in the Chinese market in the year 2016. Other countries were able to use TikTok by the next year, i.e. 2017.

The United States saw a merger between Musical.ly and TikTok and it thus became one of the most famous apps in the US as well. TikTok and its Chinese alternative Douyin are similar, but they run on separate servers, as the content complies with the Chinese censorship restrictions.

As other countries took the app to new heights, it now has offices in cities of Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo.

(Source: Shutterstock)

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TikTok news and TikTok ban in India

Within hours of being banned by the Indian Government along with 58 other China-origin apps, TikTok India on Tuesday has issued a statement. Nikhil Gandhi, Head of TikTok India, has said that the app is in the process of complying with the government's 'interim order'. 

"We have been invited to meet concerned government stakeholders for an opportunity to respond and submit clarifications. TikTok continues to comply with all data privacy and security requirements under Indian law and has not shared any information of our users in India with any foreign government, including the Chinese government," the statement reads.

"Further we are requested to in the future we would not do so. We place the highest importance on user privacy and integrity," it added.

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