TikTok ban lifted in India but it has lost at least 2 million users
Apr 25, 2019, 15:26 IST
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- The ban on the video messaging mobile app, TikTok, has been lifted in India.
- ByteDance claims that TikTok has been losing 1 million users a day because of the ban.
- The ban has weighed heavily on the company, resulting in losses of $500,000 a day and leaving more than 250 jobs vulnerable.
We are glad about this decision and we believe it is also greatly welcomed by our thriving community in India, who use TikTok as a platform to showcase their creativity. We are grateful for the opportunity to continue serving our users better. While we’re pleased that our efforts to fight against misuse of the platform has been recognised, the work is never “done” on our end. We are committed to continuously enhancing our safety features as a testament to our ongoing commitment to our users in India.
The Madras High Court lifted the ban on future downloads of TikTok and the media will, once again, be able to telecast videos that were recorded using the app.
In the two days that TikTok has been absent from the Google and Apple app stores, the company claims that it has been unable to complete six million download requests and missed out on nearly two million users.
Banning has had adverse impact on the user base of this app, losing close to 1 million new users per day... It is estimated that approximately six million requests for downloads could not be effected since the ban came into effect.
Nonetheless, ByteDance plans to soldier on and invest another $1 billion in India over the span of the next three years.
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Helena Lersch, the director of global policy at ByteDance, told the Economic Times that TikTok has received an "overwhelming positive" response from the industry, including the users and the mobile associations in the country. "I think we are a very safe app. We have industry-leading safety features on our app and our creators and users are using them," she said.
The app was banned in India on allegations of inappropriate content, encouraging pornography and potentially leading paedophiles to underage children. TikTok issued a statement thereafter explaining that any such ban "hurts free speech" — moreso, because the interim order was passed without allowing ByteDance or TikTok to defend itself.
The ban is another incident escalating the trend of content regulation on social networking platforms, a growing concern for a lot of tech giants — including Google, Facebook and Twitter.
See also:
An Indian court has banned TikTok for ‘encouraging pornography’
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If you don’t have TikTok already, you won't be able to download it anymore
TikTok was bigger than Instagram last year after passing the 1 billion download mark