Tiktok ban has finally been vacated by the Madurai Bench of Madras High court on Wednesday. They lifted the ban on one condition that the app should not be used to entertain lewd contents.

The lip-syncing social media app had encountered major backlash earlier, comprising accusation of lack of control in quality contents; in which numerous reports registered questioning the nature of Tiktok’s general section’s content. People becoming addicted and getting bullied on social media were another reasons that promoted to its obliteration,
However, after the Madras high court lifted the ban, the Indian audiences are in much joy and have shared their feelings in a huge number on twitter, congratulating the court’s decision by trending #TimetoTikTok.

Earlier this week-

tik tok ban in india

The supreme court stated on Monday that a ban on downloads of popular lip-syncing app TikTok would waived off if the Madras high court doesn’t come to a decision in its next hearing on Wednesday an appeal by Chinese internet company ByteDance against the last interim order. Last week, both Google and Apple store received a letter from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to ban downloads of tiktok app, after the Supreme Court declined to stay the interim order on the Tiktok ban.

The Madurai bench of the Madras High court issued an interim order on April 3 in order to prohibit downloads of the app, concerning to the situation where the contents seemed to be encouraging pornographic and inappropriate content- made available via app.

Supreme court bench led by Chief justice Ranjan Gogoi requested the Madras high court to make a decision, and if they failed to decide, the stay order on the tiktok ban shall stand vacated. TikTok is yet to comment on the Supreme Court’s order.

Tiktok ban in India

ByteDance, which counted on the safeguard rendered to intermediaries in Sec79 of the IT Act, debated that TikTik being an intermediary couldn’t be held responsible for acts of third parties. IT Act’s intermediary Guidelines does provide provisional legal safeguards to tech platforms for third party contents disclosed via their app. Bytedance- owner of TikTok- stated in their petition that TikTok is a normal social media platform, and that it’s discriminatory and subjective. The ‘uneven’ tiktok ban had violated the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression, it debated. They further asserted that TikTok meet the terms with local laws and make sure that it doesn’t encourage offensive content on platform.

TikTok Ban

Ban on Tiktok update

Lead of strategy at TikTok India- Sumedhas Rajgopal said, last week that TikTok eliminated 6 million videos under violation of community guidelines. Several Chinese apps, including tiktok, come under radar, not only in India, however, in the UK, the US, Indonesia, and Hong kong for contents that is frequently seen as severely close to exposing children to ‘nudity’ and probably to those who desire to force or groom young users into doing objectionable actions.

The social media industry was worried over the tiktok ban in India.They followed legal worries rising if courts gradually order tiktok ban in India.

The sources told Reuters last year august that Bytedance was contemplating a public listing in Hong Kong this year. It is one of world’s most valued start-ups possibly worth about $75 billion.

Bytedance, in their petition to the Supreme Court on Saturday, pleaded to nullify the tiktok update and instructs the Federal IT Ministry to ask companies such as Apple and Google to make the application available on their stores again.

Bytedance marked financial losses at %500,000 every day. Which is destructing the value of its finances and loss of business revenue. It further added that if tik tok ban doesn’t waive off then it would have an adverse effect on their reputation and would lose support from both investors and advertisers.

The company mentioned in its petition that ever since the Supreme Court initiated the tiktok ban the user base has been adversely affected. They are losing approx. 1 million users per day. It was calculated that about 6 million requests for downloads couldn’t be achieved due to tiktok ban.

A spokesperson for TikTok and the National IT ministry didn’t answer to appeal for comment.

What is TikTok? How the hype started?

First, it’s not related to Kesha’s ‘tiktok’ that came out 10 years ago- that we all played on loop and literally exploded our brains singing to that song. Many presumed this app to be related with this song; but it is not, whatsoever! So where did it come from? It isn’t the first app to become hugely successful across the globe, initially there was ‘Dubsmash’ another lip-syncing app that became popular few years back. And now, once again, TikTok aka Musical.ly that could be seen in almost everyone’s phone. It was first launched by Chinese entrepreneurs Luyu yang and Alex Zhu, in 2014. However, in china people call it ‘Douyin.’ In 2018 Musicaly.ly converted into TikTok and all the accounts made automatically converted into TikTok account.

It soon became one of the most significant companies in the world. So how does it work, you ask- well, users’ record videos, lip syncing to songs, act out comedy lines. You could collaborate with anyone by doing a ‘duet’ through replying to their video. It concocts a split screen diptych, like so feeding through tons of endless reactions. Users could upload a video with their own voices, as well.

Its effects, and other features made it fun to use which is the reason why it grown massively. In September, it exceeded monthly installs of Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Snapchat in app stores. In July, it hit 500 million active global users monthly. TikTok soon listed under the crazy social media trends in 2018.

Now, parents are raising concerns over their children concerning the inadequate languages of some videos which might make it less apt for young audience. Not long ago, parents raised similar apprehension towards another social media app called Snapchat. Every parent were asking the same question- is snapchat safe for kids, similar to that of tiktok.

Does it have any safety features?

Like Instagram and facebook, tiktok too has a feature called Digital Wellbeing Element that would regulate time spent on tiktok and restrict the appearance of inappropriate contents on the feeds. Moreover, you could set your account on private mode, so that all your videos could only be seen by you and no one else. With your account on private mode you could approve or deny any users and block incoming messages from anyone and limit to the people you know.

However, please know that even with such privacy, your child’s photo, bio, and username are still public to everyone on the app.



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