The short video app TikTok, by music.ly (which was acquired by the Chinese social network ByteDance in 2017), has not gone through days of glory in India.
After facing a backlash from regulators there, this week the app was removed from Apple and Google app stores, as reported by Quartz India.
If you don't know TikTok, it's a platform that enables users to create and share short videos enhanced with digital effects (such as Snapchat or Instagram) that have been very successful in Asian countries.
In India, the app has been downloaded more than 240 million times, according to a survey by the Sensor Tower analysis company.
However, on May 3, a court in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu asked the federal government to ban the app in the country, claiming the service encouraged pornography and warning of the action of sexual predators.
According to the Reuters, an official from the Ministry of Information Technology said the federal government sent a letter from Apple and Google requesting the removal of the app from their platforms.
Following the federal government's request, ByteDance appealed the decision, claiming that it would harm the company.
According to the developer, the ruling would affect freedom of expression rights, but when the case was referred to the state court, a judge rejected ByteDance's request to suspend the app's ban order.
As for the charges, ByteDance claims that it has analyzed the content produced by Indian users and had removed over 6 million videos that violated its terms of use and guidelines.
In a statement issued before the app was banned, the company explained that it was stepping up its efforts to monitor the objectionable content.
This is not the first time a country has taken action against TikTok.
Last February, the US Federal Trade Commission (Federal Trade Commission, or FTC) fined ByteDance $ 5.7 million following allegations of violations of child privacy laws.
In this case, the developer was accused of collecting personal data from users under 13 without the consent of those responsible.
via TechCrunch, AppleInsider
