TikTok will again be fishing in troubled water. The app now faces fresh 24 questions from the government ranging from alleged unlawful usage by children anti-national content.
The Chinese video app has more than 20 crore downloads in India and the Ministry of Electronics and IT (Meity) wants to know whether the company stores data locally and what move has been undertaken to ensure the safety of children.
TikTok was banned in April following a directive of a court that it encouraged pornography and the app could also expose children to sexual predators.
Beijing Bytedance Technology Co. is the parent company of TikTok app and the court suspension was revoked after its appeal.
One of the questions of Meity includes, “As alleged in news items, the platforms (TikTok and Helo) have become a hub for anti-national activities. Please share your response.”
Helo is a regional social-media app of the same company.
Meity has asked to assure the earlier version of the company that data of Indian users is being stored only in US and Singapore and not in China, and the same will not be transferred to any other government, private entity, or any third party in future.
The ministry has further put up questions with TikTok owner Bytedance whether it has invested hugely for putting up some 11,000 morphed political ads on other platforms in online social media.
Bytedance is a start-up company and its both apps are not made available in the Chinese market.
