Days after India banned popular video-sharing platform TikTok and 58 other Chinese mobile apps in the country citing security reasons, the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) has sent a notice and a list of 79 questions to these applications.
In the stern notice, the central government has asked the apps to respond by July 22, failing which the ban imposed on them will be permanent. In other words, TikTok and the other apps which have been banned for the while will be permanently prohibited in the country if the companies do not reply to the Centre within three weeks.
The replies from these app companies will be sent to a special committee, specifically constituted for further examination.
In the meanwhile, TikTok has published a transparency report in which it has said that 16 million videos from Indian users in the last six months of 2019 Indian users have been removed for violating content policies.
The report also revealed that TikTok received a total of 302 requests from India and the platform complied with 90 per cent of the requests. With 100 requests, the US came second to India in terms of a number of requests.
On June 30, the Indian government banned TikTok, a popular short video-sharing platform, and 58 other Chinese mobile apps in the country citing security reasons. A day after, the applications were removed from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store in India.
All 59 apps with Chinese links that were listed by the Centre in its ban order were removed from the online app stores, including TikTok, Helo, Likee, CamScanner, Mi Video Call - Xiaomi, Vigo Video as well as e-commerce platforms like Club Factory and Shein and games like Clash of Kings.
In an order issued under section 69A of the Information Technology Act read with the relevant provisions of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking of Access of Information by Public) Rules 2009, the Ministry of Information Technology said it has decided to block 59 apps in view of the emergent nature of threats.
These apps are "prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order," the government said in its order.
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