After several weeks of legal tussle and speculation, India finally seems to have put a ban on the popular Chinese video-sharing mobile application, TikTok.
The application wasn’t available for download on Google Play Store as well as Apple App Store in India since 17 April morning.
The Madras High Court on 4 April had asked the government of PM Narendra Modi to have TikTok banned saying that the app encouraged pornography and also had young users in peril of sexual predators. Previously this week, the country’s Supreme Court had declined to stay the ban order on the app issued by the Madras High Court.
Notably, India has the largest TikTok user base of nearly 40 percent out of the 500mn users of the app. The present ban on TikTok, though, doesn’t impact its existing users in India. However, the ban will indeed impact the future growth of TikTok because out of the 188mn new users it acquired in the previous quarter, the biggest growth was from India (88.6mn new users).
On the other hand, TikTok currently hopes to make a return to India, soon. In a statement, ByteDance that owns the application said that the company has faith in the judicial system of India and that its Indian users would receive the final outcome well.