Highlights:
- TikTok along with 58 other Chinese apps were banned in India earlier this week
- The government said the ban came due to security threat
- TikTok now has distanced itself from Beijing, responding to the Indian ban
The Chi a based small-video sharing platform TikTok has distanced itself from Beijing after it along with 58 other Chinese applications were banned by the Government of India due to security threats. International news agency Reuters claims to have seen a letter to the Government of India dated 28th of June where the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of TikTok Kevin Mayer said the Chinese government has never requested user data nor the company would hand it over if the government even asked.
TikTok is not available in China but is owned by the Chinese company named ByteDance which is now seeking to distance itself from its Chinese roots to appeal to the global audience.
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ShareIt, WeChat, TikTok and 56 other Chinese application were banned with immediate effects by the government of India.
Mayer wrote, “I can confirm that the Chinese government has never made a request to us for the TikTok data of Indian users,” and added that the data from the Indian users is stored in servers in Singapore.
In the latter he also said, “If we do ever receive such a request in the future, we would not comply.”
The letter was sent ahead of a meeting which is expected to be held next week between the company and the officials from the government.
A government source, cited by Reuters, said that the ban was unlived to be retracted in the near future, Lawyers have said that the legal challenge was unlikely to be successful given India cited “National Security” concerns over the ban of the 59 Chinese applications.
The ban, which was upset the growing legion of TikTok stars in India has also come as a blessing for the local application such as Roposo which has seen a growth in users base in the 48 hours since the ban was implemented. Roposo, reportedly, added 2.2 crore new users in the time frame.
In the region, TikTok committed to invest $ 1 billion and since its launch in 2017, it has become one of the fastest-adapted social media platforms.
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India was its biggest market by userbase followed by the United State of America.
In the letter, Mayer played up the investment of the company in the region as he highlighted that over 3,500 direct and indirect employees are associated with the firm, adding that they even made the content available in 14 languages in India.
Mayer wrote, “The privacy of our users, and the security and sovereignty of India, are of utmost importance to us,” and added, “We have already announced our plans to build a data centre in India.”
