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Last month, India banned 59 Chinese applications, adding the popular TikTok, posing the need for “data sovereignty.”
Now, the country has introduced 47 more and is contemplating another 275 for imaginable bans.
The 47 recently banned programs were basically clones or variants of TikTok through India Today. One of the banned programs was called “TikTok Lite”.
Punit Agarwal, head of Delhi’s social media and IT unit BJP, told the news on Twitter, writing: “The Indian government banned 47 other Chinese programs that were variants and cloned copies of the 59 banned applications in June. These banned clones come with Tiktok Lite, Helo Lite, SHAREit Lite, BIGO LIVE Lite and VFY Lite. Over 250 more radar programs, adding PubG. #DigitalStrike.”
Before it was banned on June 29, TikTok had an enormous audience in India. In April the app surpassed 2 billion downloads worldwide, of which 611 million came from India and accounting for 30% of TikTok’s total global audience.
Indian TikTok users strongly feel the absence of the app.
Data from analytics site Sensor Tower shows since TikTok was banned download rates for the three next most popular video sharing apps have shot up 155%.
The Economic Times reports that the Indian government is reviewing 275 other apps, adding the Battle Royale video game “Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds” (PUBG) owned by Chinese gaming giant Tencent. Resso, a music streaming app owned by TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is also on the list.
The initial ban on Chinese programs came into force here after geopolitical tensions between India and China following a skirmish in the disputed territory of Ladakh in northern India.
India is not the only country to take strong action against Chinese applications. Pakistan issued a definitive warning to TikTok last week, raising court cases of “immoral content.” Earlier this month, Pakistan also temporarily banned PUBG, saying that it had also won court cases that the game “addicted, ted in time and has serious negative consequences for children’s physical and mental health.”
The Trump administration has also caused a stir over an imaginable TikTok ban. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on July 7 that the United States was “certainly contemplating banning TikTok for reasons of confidentiality and national security. A day later, President Trump said he was contemplating banning TikTok as a way to punish China for the pandemic coronavirus outbreak.