Asia

Commentary: Indias legion of TikTok users are collateral damage in Chinese app ban

adminJuly 3, 20203 Mins read96 Views

CANBERRA: Indians have been very enthusiastic users of all forms of social media, but TikTok has found them to be an especially eager audience.

With 660 million downloads of the app and more than 120 million active users, India represents TikToks biggest foreign market.

The short-video platform has proven ideal for Indians who love to showcase their Bollywood dancing and lip-syncing skills (which is, regardless of technology, everyones favourite indoor sport).

It has made superstars out of ordinary Indians across the socio-economic divide – such as the small-town shop owner who has been profiled by the BBC, and established Bollywood actors and dancers, such as Ahsaas Channa, with 3.4 million followers.

Most notably, it allows rural Indian users to emerge from the shadows – such as a brother and sister dancing duo from Jharkhand, in the tribal belt in central India who have almost 5 million followers, and one video that has gained an astonishing 23 million views. Thats Kardashian-level following.

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But despite the apps immense popularity, the Indian government included it on a list of 59 banned Chinese mobile apps earlier this week. Also banned are WeChat, Alibabas UC Browser and e-commerce app Shein.

In a statement, the Indian government said:

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 unauthorised manner to servers which have locations outside India.

The compilation of user data for mining and profiling by elements hostile to Indias national security and defence is a matter of deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures.

TikTok is owned by China's ByteDance and was one of 59 Chinese mobile apps banned late Monday by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. (AFP/Olivier DOULIERY)

In a statement posted to its social media channels, TikTok India said, “The Government of India has issued an interim order for the blocking of 59 apps, including TikTok, and we are in the process of complying with it.”

“TikTok continues to comply with all data privacy and security requirements under Indian law and have not shared any information of our users in India with any foreign government, including the Chinese Government,” said the company, which is owned by Chinas ByteDance.

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A CRITICAL TIME FOR THE BAN

There are two elements to the move. One is that it is a reasonable response to growing credible fears that the Chinese government is using these apps to mine data and gain personal information about users.

With calls to extend the ban to take in Chinese tech giants Huawei, ZTE and even the widely used Paytm (which is Indian-owned yet received massive funding from Alibaba), the ban is welcomed by Indian commentators who say it is a fitting response to a pressing need to crack down on Chinese excesses.

The issues around privacy and data mining are nothing new; in fact, US senators have been agitating for an intelligence probe into TikTok for some months.

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But Indias ban comes at a critical time: A few weeks after a heated border clash and amid the ensuing anti-China sentiment at home, the move is widely seen as a response to Chinas ongoing encroachment into Indian territory.

The June clashes that left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead were in response to the Chinese armys attempts to set up camp in border areas in Ladakh region, specifically the Galwan Valley.

In that context, the move signals that decades of appeasement towards China by a succession of Indian leaders is coming to an end, something that has earned Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his predecessors significant criticism.