Modi Govt banned 59 Chinese applications, including TikTok due to national security concerns. A few days later, the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) has sent notices with 79 questions lists to these applications’ companies. In the severe warning, the ministry ordered these applications to respond within three weeks, otherwise, they may face a permanent prohibition in India.
India banned dozens of Chinese apps last month, including ByteDance’s popular video-sharing app TikTok, Tencent’s messaging app WeChat, and Alibaba’s UC Browser saying they pose a threat to sovereignty and integrity.
“If these banned apps do not respond by July 22, the ban imposed on them would become permanent”, the notice issued by MEITY reportedly read. If reports are to be believed, the replies from these banned companies will be sent to a special committee, constituted to examine the matter.
Meanwhile, TikTok, the short video-sharing platform, in its transparency report has stated that it has removed 16 million videos from Indian users in the last six months of 2019 for violating its content policies. The total number of videos removed globally during the same period stood at 49 million, reports claimed.
The report also revealed that TikTok received a total of 302 requests from India and the platform complied with 90 per cent of the requests. With 100 requests, the US came second to India in terms of number of requests.
TikTok said it did not receive any takedown requests or user information requests from China. “We do not and have not removed any content at the request of the Chinese government, and would not do so if asked,” a TikTok spokesperson was quoted as saying by The Verge.
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