Tiktok goes offline in India, says 'in process of complying with govt directive'
New Delhi/IBNS: A day after the Centre banned 59 apps with Chinese links, TikTok has now completely stopped working in India.
The app has been delisted from both Google Play and App Store.
On trying to download the app from Google Play, the message being shown is: "The item is not available in your country."
In fact, the TikTok app has completely stopped working on all devices, including the desktop website even if it was previously installed.
A notice for TikTok users read: "Dear users, we are in the process of complying with the Government of India's directive to block 59 apps. Ensuring the privacy and security of all our users in India remains our utmost priority.”
The app no more loads new videos and rather show a network error.
The block seems to be done proactively by the company in an attempt to comply with the government directives following the ban.
TikTok Statement:
Earlier in the day, TikTok said it had shared no information of its users with any foreign government including the one in China, following the ban imposed on all apps from the Asian country by India.
Issuing a statement, TikTok said, "We have been invited to meet concerned government stakeholders for an opportunity to respond and submit clarifications. TikTok continues to comply with all data privacy and security requirements under Indian law and has not shared any information of our users in India with any foreign government, including the Chinese government."
"Further if we are requested to in the future we would not do so. We place the highest importance on user privacy and integrity.”
"TikTok has democratized the internet by making it available in 14 Indian languages, with hundreds of millions of users, artists, story-tellers, educators and performers depending on it for their livelihood, many of whom are first time internet users."
India bans 59 apps with Chinese links:
India on Monday banned 59 apps with Chinese links including the very popular TikTok and UC Browser in the wake of the deadly faceoff with China in Ladakh on June 15 which left 20 Indian soldiers martyred.
In a statement, the government said the apps were blocked "in view the information available (that) they are engaged in activities which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order."
The Centre noted that there have been raging concerns on aspects relating to data security and safeguarding the privacy of 130 crore Indians.
"The Ministry of Information Technology has received many complaints from various sources including several reports about misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorized manner to servers which have locations outside India," the Indian statement said.
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