Why India's ban on Video app TikTok is unnerving the tech industry

An Indian ban on downloading TikTok, one of the world's most popular mobile applications, has heightened industry worries that technology companies could now face increased scrutiny and regulatory challenges in one of their most important markets.

TikTok, which allows users to create and share videos with special effects, has become a sensation in India, where it has been downloaded by nearly 300 million users so far, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower, out of more than 1 billion installs globally.

Its runaway popularity has attracted criticism from some politicians, however, in a largely conservative society that can have a low boiling point for even moderately racy content.

In the case of TikTok, 15-second dance clips and memes dominate the platform, although some videos do show youngsters, some scantily clad, lip-syncing and grooving to popular tunes. Local media have also reported several accidental deaths when users attempted to make videos with knives and guns.

The IT minister of Tamil Nadu, M. Manikandan, said in February that "young girls and everybody is behaving very badly" on TikTok. Read Complete Article