TikTok is a highly popular app in India and is currently one of the most-used apps among the Indian youth. TikTok was created by Beijing Bytedance Technology and it allows users to make and share short videos with special effects and voice effects. After the popularity of the app surged in the urban Indian areas, it garnered a lot of appreciation from people living in rural parts of India too. We should mention that around 1.3 billion Indian people reside in rural areas. TikTok enables users to upload jokes, funny video clips and dance videos to share with the world. Furthermore, users recreate the scenes of popular Bollywood movies and upload them. But with the growth of the platform in India, it also became a platform where youth put some obscene videos.
The IT minister of Tamil Nadu spoke to Reuters in February, and called some of the TikTok’s more suggestive dance videos as “unbearable”. Prior to this, a Hindu nationalist group which is close to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had called for the ban of the app in India because of the same reason. It should also be noted that in February, BJP’s Amit Malviya who is the chief of information technology, said that the party was tracking TikTok conversations and called it “a brilliant medium for creative expression”. Coming back to the ban, the Madras High Court, which has been hearing a public interest litigation against the app said that the children who were using the app were vulnerable to exposure to sexual predators. That’s the reason the High Court is demanding a ban on the Chinese video app. According to an order seen by Reuters, the court also mentioned that “there is a possibility of the children contacting strangers directly”. The Court also asked the media to not broadcast the videos shown on TikTok on their platforms. On this matter, a TikTok spokesman told Reuters that the company was committed to abiding by local laws and they were waiting for a copy of the court’s order. Once the verdict of the court was before them, they would take the appropriate action. The spokesperson said, “Maintaining a safe and positive in-app environment … is our priority.”
