The ruling came after a PIL was filed against the social media app saying that TikTok escalated pornography and child abuse. However, later on, the ban was lifted when TikTok agreed that it will monitor content on its platform and ensure that pornographic videos are not uploaded on it. Once the ban was imposed by Madras High Court, the TikTok app was unavailable on Google’s Play Store as well as Apple‘s App Store. It has been reported that the developer of the application – Beijing Bytedance Technology Co – had to bear a financial loss of up to $5,00,000 per day. The company also said that the ban put more than 250 jobs at risk. We should mention that these financial losses include destruction in the value of its investments and loss of commercial revenue of the app. ByteDance had also said to the court that the ban would result in the reputation and goodwill taking a hit with advertisers as well as investors. According to the company’s plea that it submitted to the court, “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.”
While the ban got lifted last week, the app was still unavailable to download from the App Store and Google Play Store until now. The Chinese app is now available to download from both the app stores. So, in case you haven’t downloaded it and wanted to try it out, you can now head to the app store to get the app. According to Sensor Tower, TikTok had 88.6 million users in Q1 2019 in India. The ban on the Chinese social media and video sharing app has in general become a cause of concern for the social media industry in India as they may have the same fate if content on their respective platforms is not regulated.
