The Government of India has banned 59 mobile apps, including TikTok, UC Browser and other Chinese apps on Monday, 29 June, calling them “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order”.
Since this announcement, TikTok stars have started making short videos about their exits from the app. The Quint got in touch with Ashnoor Kaur, an actor who has 3.2 million followers on TikTok and Jay Bhanushali who has more than 4 million followers.
While Ashnoor thinks it’s a great decision by the government, Bhanushali is of a completely different opinion.
Ashnoor says,
“I am really happy with this decision and I’m totally in support of it because these apps had become an integral part of our lives. With this move, the distraction that we had has been completely removed. Now we can concentrate on more productive things. We can now use Indian apps to entertain ourselves”.
Jay, on the other hand, is extremely disappointed with TikTok getting banned. He says, “It’s disappointing, because after working hard and creating content you suddenly come to know that the app won’t be available any longer. I also feel bad for all those people working for these companies. Their jobs are in threat.”
Since many Chinese apps have been suspected of harvesting the data of users and feed to Chinese intelligence agencies, this move by the Indian government seems to be in line to avoid the same.
With this decision coming through, the biggest blow has been dealt to TikTok, which has a huge following in India. In 2019, TikTok recorded a monthly active user base of 120 million in India.
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