The wildly popular app TikTok, created by Chinese tech firm ByteDance, had faced a rage in India for the better part of this year but last week that ride came to an end after a state court came down heavily on the app for encouraging pornography. The state court in question also asked the central government of the country to ensure that the app is no longer available for download. Soon after, the app was taken down by both Apple App Store and the Google Play Store in India. However, ByteDance is not taking the ban lying down and have now moved to the Supreme Court of India asking the country’s highest court to remove the ban.
In addition to requesting the court to revoke the ban altogether, the company also pointed out the losses that is has been suffering ever since the app was banned in India. However, in addition to that, the company has also specified the staggering losses that it has been suffering due to the ban. Although Tik Tok has garnered around 1 billion downloads worldwide, it was in India where the app had a massive presence and was well on its course to becoming a behemoth with 300 million downloads until its ban. The company has claimed that it is losing a staggering $500,000 on a daily basis and in addition to that, the ban is going to lead to massive job losses if it continues for long.
Bytedance went on to add that the ban has also had a domino effect of sorts and has affected download figures in other markets. In the court filing, Chinese tech firm stated, “Banning has had an adverse impact on the user base of this app, losing close to 1 million new users per day … It is estimated that approximately six million requests for downloads could not be affected since the ban came into effect.” However, the Supreme Court of India, which has the power of providing relief to a company in such matters until a legal issue is resolved, has refused to do so. Instead, the highest court in India has referred the whole issue back to the state court in Tamil Nadu which had passed down the ruling initially. The company has also stated that the number of videos that could be considered pornographic was very low in number and hence, the app in itself does not warrant a ban.
