GUWAHATI: Tik Tok, a musical application for creating and sharing short videos has been blocked by Google after a state court’s directive prohibited its download.
The Madras high court had asked the government to ban Tik Tok as they argued it encourages pornography and makes children vulnerable to sexual predators. This ruling came after an individual launched a public interest litigation calling for a ban against the app.
Following this, the government sent a letter to tech giants, Apple and Google to abide by the court order. The app was still available on Apple’s app store until Tuesday, April 16 but has been removed from Google’s Play Store in India.
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The app had become increasingly popular in India and had been downloaded more than 240 million times in February according to analytics firm, Sensor Tower. This was a 12 time increase since January of the same year.
The company employed more than 250 people in India and was planning to invest more to expand its business, according to a report by The Times of India.
The app is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese Internet technology company based in Beijing.
It should be noted that earlier a court in Tamil Nadu had refused a request by Bytedance Technology to suspend a ban on the app, following which ByteDance challenged the court’s ban in Supreme Court saying it went against the freedom of speech right in India.