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Apple's App Store has removed Chinese video app Zynn, a clone of the hugely popular video app TikTok, following accusations of plagiarism. The app was taken down from Googles Play Store last week. A spokesperson for Zynn told The Verge that its issues with plagiarism were minor, and that the company was "in communication with both Google and Apple to ensure compliance with their guidelines and regulations." Zynn arrived on iOS and Android in early May and quickly reached the top of the download charts. By the end of May, the app had become the most downloaded free iOS app and a top 10 download in the  Google Play Store. Part of the reason for this rapid growth is the app's rewards programme where users got paid for watching videos and also to get other users on the app, said the report. Google Play Store  earlier removed another  TikTok  rival app Mitron. Read Complete Article

Short-video sharing platform TikTok, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, is facing a huge backlash in India after an internet war broke out between its influencers and  YouTube  content creators. The app's rating on Google Play Store reduced to 1.3 stars on May 20 from more than 4.5 stars only a few days earlier. Moreover, there has been a growing demand for a ban on the platform in India owing to alleged distribution of insensitive and hateful content on  TikTok. Recently, the National Commission for Women (NCW) wrote to the video-sharing social networking service  TikTok  over a video in which one of its users allegedly glorified acid attack and crime against women. The video has been taken down since, and the user's account has been suspended. Rekha Sharma, the chairperson of the NCW said several videos of women being abused had been shared on the platform. Expressing her views on Twitter, she said that the platform should be banned as the app was ...

Two Republican senators on Thursday introduced a bill aimed at banning federal employees from using Chinese social media app TikTok on their government-issued phones, amid growing national security concerns around the collection and sharing of data on US users with China's government. The bill by Senators Josh Hawley and Rick Scott comes as several US agencies that deal with national security and intelligence issues including the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security have banned employees from using the app. It is also the latest attempt to rein in technology companies by Hawley, who has repeatedly clashed with big tech companies. "TikTok is owned by a Chinese company that includes Chinese Communist Party members on its board, and it is required by law to share user data with Beijing," Hawley said. " As many of our federal agencies have already recognized, TikTok is a major security risk to the United States, and it has no place on gove...

China-based ByteDance, the parent company of popular short video application TikTok , will set up a data centre in India, becoming one of the first social media companies to do so in the country, the company said in a statement shared exclusively with Business Standard. "India is one of our strongest markets and we are happy to be part of the mainframe of Digital India in 15 languages. Since the launch of our platforms in India, we have stored the data of our Indian users at industry-leading third party data centres in the US and Singapore...We now believe the time has come to take the next big leap," the statement read. The company has set an internal target of 6-18 months to set up the data centre, Business Standard has learnt. The plan is part of the $1 billion ByteDance has recently committed to the Indian market over the next three years. The move is also significant because of the Indian government's ongoing focus on data localisation, as well as the increa...