Reported By:
| Edited By: DNA |Source: DNA |Updated: Apr 18, 2019, 05:11 PM IST
The Indian government is getting its clamps around social media. On Tuesday, it ordered tech giants Google and Apple to take down the Chinese-owned TikTok video app after a court expressed concerns over the spread of pornographic material.
The video app has already been banned in neighbouring Bangladesh and hit with an enormous fine in the United States for illegally collecting information from children. TikTok, which claims to have 500 million users worldwide, has more than 120 million in India.
It has been fighting efforts to shut it down after the Madras High Court called for a ban on April 3. While the case is yet mired in legal proceedings with the Supreme Court expected to hear it next week, the impact of this app with 15-second posts has been overwhelming.
Recently, a 19-year-old man was allegedly shot dead by a friend in Delhi as they posed with a pistol to make a video to show on TikTok. While the case of TikTok relates to obscenity and sexual innuendoes, generally speaking, the Indian government has been vary of Chinese apps, that have come to dominate the Indian ecosystem.
In periodic advisories issued to troops and other security agencies, particularly those on the LaC, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) has warned that China could be collecting vital information about Indian security installations through its popular mobile phone apps and devices. The IB advisory contains a list of 42 popular Chinese apps like WeChat, Weibo, UC Browser and UC News, which they claim pose a threat to India.
The IAF too has asked its airmen to avoid using Chinese Xiaomi smartphones and notebooks on the ground that they could transfer user data to remote servers located in China.
