IS THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT’S BAN ON TIK TOK JUSTIFIED IN INDIA?

JYOTHI VENKATESH

The popular video sharing app TikTok was banned along with 58 other Chinese applications by the Ministry of Information and Technology. The government said that these applications posed a threat to national security and thus the decision was taken to pull them down from Google Play and Apple App Store. Here in this debate, listen to what Mou Das, Shivin Narang and Vraddhi Sharma tell JYOTHI VENKATESH about the government decision to ban Tik Tok.

MOU DAS, PRODUCER

I support the ban. I don't know the message behind the ban. But if it is to promote 'Make in India' and since it is against China, which has been acting hostile towards us off-late, I am in support of it. There is another theory which says there might be a security breach of one's data being stolen. I have no clue how true this is, but again, if so yes very much in support of it."

The short video sharing app is said to have over 120 million users worldwide. The ban has received mixed reactions from users in urban as well as rural areas that includes celebrities like Shilpa Shetty, Riteish Deshmukh, Neha Kakkar, Jacqueline Fernandez, Disha Patani, Genelia D'Souza and Tiger Shroff, to name a few. However, this is not the first time that the application has been banned in India. Even last year it was banned for promoting pornography.The other apps that are banned by the government include Shareit, UC Browser, Shein, Club Factory, Beauty Plus, Cam Scanner, WeChat, Clash of Kings, Baidu Map, Helo and Likee.