Social-Media
Vowing It's No Tool for beijing, TikTok Tackles India App Ban
(WSJ) TikTok, a popular short-video app, tried to get away from Beijing when India prohibited it and dozens of other Chinese mobile applications in protest last month for a deadly border clash.
New Chairman Kevin Mayer of the TikTok ban on cyber security said that China's government has never requested information from Indian users and even if it does, the company will not comply. In response to this ban on Cyber Security.
Mr. Mayer said in a letter sent to Indian officials that was viewed by Wall Street Journal "The privacy of our users and Indian security and sovereignty are extremely important to us."
Bytedance Ltd. is the owner of TikTok, Beijing. Mr. Mayer, an American who took charge of the global expansion of Bytedance, was poached from Disney on 1 June. Industry observers say that Bytedance could boost its recent efforts to distance itself from Chinese roots, and TikTok in particular.
Mr. Mayer said in a letter that the Indian user data are on servers in Singapore and that the company plans to build a data center also in India. He told us that TikTok has offices and clients worldwide and is not available in the Chinese market.
Bytedance did not answer a request for comment immediately.
India said on Tuesday that it would block new downloads and prevent or interrupt the access of 59 Chinese apps by existing Indian users. The move followed an uprising of 20 Indian soldiers in a highly contested border last month.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Tencent Holdings Ltd., and Bytedance were prohibited from using their applications and they are crimping the Chinese leading technology companies into what many consider one of the world's largest untapled digital markets. Bytedance has already been by its users outside China the largest market.
Some Indian consumers have begun receiving error messages and can not access TikTok and other bytes like Helo.
Chinese technology companies have received a request to withdraw their apps from Google and Apple app stores and discontinue services to indigenous consumers.
The Indian ban was just one of several major management tests confronted by Mr. Mayer of TikTok, whose short reign coincided with a political flow of content that was driven by events such as the Black Lives Matter protests in the USA. In the wake of concerns expressed by senators regarding censoring content to make Beijing easier, TikTok is also the object of a national security review by U.S. authorities.
Users of other Chinese apps in the country also feel the impact of the ban on India.
Tencent's WeChat, China's most popular message app, is limited in functionality, with Indian users reporting that they are not capable of making voice calls.
The mobile web browser of Alibaba, UC Browser, is also affected, and its news feed feature does not work. UC Browser, India's second most popular mobile browser, is favored to use fewer data and storage than their peers.
The Indian authorities would shortly be asking the owners of the 59 prohibited Chinese apps to demonstrate that they do not misuse indigenous information or pose a threat to cybersecurity. If the authorities are not satisfied with their responses, India is going to investigate companies.
However, TikTok is likely to be the hardest hit, having downloaded more than 660 million in India. India is the world 's largest download app market, with Indischen people filming short videos from the songs on the farm to the Lamborghinis.
Source: Wall Street Journal by Rajesh Roy and Liza Lin
