As of 9:30 am on Tuesday, 30 June, the TikTok app has been taken down from the Google PlayStore. However, it is still available on the Apple App Store.
TikTok has also been invited to meet concerned government stakeholders for an opportunity to respond and submit clarification. The official date for the meeting, however, has not been announced yet.
The company also says that it continues to comply with all data privacy and security requirements under the law and “has not shared any information of TikTok users in India with any foreign government, including the Chinese government.”
The Chinese app’s developer, ByteDance, in response to that ban, told Reuters that it is committing a dedicated team of 2,000 people in India to tackle the user security issues and is ready to show “commitment towards India overall.”
Another popular short video app Helo has also responded to the ban. Just so you should know, Helo is also owned by ByteDance which is the parent company of TikTok.
“The Government of India has issued an interim order for 59 apps, and we are in the process of complying with it. We are working with the key stakeholders for an opportunity to respond and submit clarifications. Helo continues to comply with all data privacy and security requirements under Indian law. We place the highest importance on user privacy and integrity. We are proud to provide millions of users in India a platform where they can express themselves in a language of their choice and we aim to do so in future as well.”
Helo Spokesperson
Both TikTok and Helo have a huge subscriber base in India, which is why it is a key market for the companies.
Along with TikTok and Helo, short video-making apps like Bigo Live, Likee, Vigo Video and U Video are others that have been banned in India.
Also, ByteDance has already announced that it will discontinue the services of two of its other short video apps in India by October this year.
Seeing this as an opportunity to push for the #VocalForLocal campaign and promote Indian video-making apps, many Indian video app developers have welcomed this move.
“This is a very good step taken by the Govt of India and the IT Ministry of India, For a very long time TikTok has been spying on users and sending back the data to China. We are happy that this step has been finally taken. I thank and congratulate Narendra Modi sir. And we assure we would like to welcome all the users of TikTok to come and try our Chingari, which is a 100% India grown app, and made for the passionate Indians.”
Sumit Ghosh, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Chinagri App
We welcome governments move to ban Chinese companies in larger interest of the country. However, we strongly feel that the objective will only be fully achieved when government also consider the control, Chinese investors have in Indian companies, which from the perspective of data privacy/security will remain a leaky bucket for Indian customers data, draining to China.
Sandeep Singh, Co-founder & President, Khabri
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