After The Ban, TikTok Has Been Downloaded 12 Times As Much As It Was Before

A few days have gone by since India issued a ban against the Chinese app TikTok. Although both Apple and Google have had a lot of efforts on removing it out of their app stores, users are looking for new ways to download the app to their smartphones. As a piece of evidence, the number of TikTok downloads from a variety of websites from third parties is surprisingly spiking.

The APKMirror founder Artem Russakovskii stated that the downloads of the short-video sharing app on their website have surged “roughly 10-15 times, and a majority of them are from India." APKMirror is considered a trusted website for those in need of download applications that they can’t find out on the app stores.

Russakovskii said that on April 16, the company’s website had the number of traffic on the Chinese app increased by 5 times within one day after the India ban came into effect. On April 17, the number spiked to approximately 12 times over the regular traffic.

Google Trends also reported that after the ban, the keyword “TikTok download” has got much more interests from users in India than it was before. The app was first banned by the Indian government on April 03 because of being accused of delivering pornography as well as working as an efficient tool for sexual predators to aim at children. On April 15, it was officially banned in India.

Right after that, both Apple and Google were required to remove the app out of their own app stores. These companies were in compliance with the order on April 16. According to a report from the Press Trust of India on April 19, ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company is planning to pour $1 billion in the Indian market in the next 03 years.

TikTok first came to India in 2018. Until now, there have been 12 crores active users in cities and small towns, and most of them are still young. They mainly use the app to take shots as well as share exciting moments via short videos that are usually further designed with GIFs and stickers.

Meanwhile, TikTok got a punishment from the Indian government, other social media networks like Twitter have done similar things, for example, to provide short pornographic videos given by performers and publishers. However, the difference is that they don’t have to suffer from what the Chinese app is facing.

Another important thing, the cyberlaw expert Pavan Duggal believed that the India ban against TikTok doesn’t ensure children won’t be able to approach the app anymore. He said, “Banning the app is completely out of sync with today’s reality. Even if the app is banned, people can still download it from other sources or by changing their location. The problem is not with the app but with third-party content. Strict action needs to be taken against people publishing such content instead of asking for a blanket ban on apps.”

The primary concern of mental health experts at present is that users can still download the app from a variety of websites of third parties.

Dr. Jayant Mahadevan, who now works for the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru expressed his concern,

According to many experts, we should focus on raising users’ awareness while using social media platforms and the Internet. The associate professor of psychiatry Arun Kandasamy said,