Madras high court lifts TikTok ban in India

New Delhi: In a boost to Beijing Bytedance Technology Co., the Madras high court lifted the TikTok ban that it had imposed on 3 April following a case accusing the short video-sharing app of propagating pornographic content and exposing children to predators.

"I argued that there shouldn't be a ban on the intermediary, there should be removal of offending content. I showed the court the do's and don'ts of the statutory guidelines on how intermediaries should function," said Arvind Datar, who was appointed as Amicus Curae (independent counsel) to the court.

TikTok welcomed the Madras high court's order.

“We are glad about this decision, and we believe it is also greatly welcomed by our thriving community in India, who use TikTok as a platform to showcase their creativity," said TikTok in a statementon.

"We are grateful for the opportunity to continue serving our users better. While we’re pleased that our efforts to fight against misuse of the platform has been recognised, the work is never 'done' on our end. We are committed to continuously enhancing our safety features as a testament to our ongoing commitment to our users in India."

TikTok has over 200 million users in the country, according to the company.
While the ban has been lifted, the app wasn’t available on the Apple and Google app stores at the time of publishing this story.

That said, despite the ban, TikTok continued to be downloaded in India, and saw the number of downloads from third-party websites increase phenomenally.

"There are so many indirect ways to access banned content, as we saw in the case of TikTok. The message that is loud and clear is that India is going to see the progress and contribution of these apps with a microscopic viewpoint and that they will have to ensure compliance with Indian parameters and Indian laws."