India: The Supreme Court Refuses To Interfere With The Ban Of TikTok

On April 15, the Supreme Court refused to interfere with the order to ban Chinese app TikTok of the Madras High Court and posted the matter for a hearing on April 22.

The decision made by the Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Sanjiv Khanna, and Justice Deepak Gupta came after an appeal made by ByteDance, the parent’s company of TikTok, reasoning the order from the High Court was ex-parte.

The matter was listed for a hearing at the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on April 16. On April 3, the high court had requested the Centre to issue a ban on the app, concerning over its “pornographic and inappropriate” contents.  Social media had also been restrained from telecasting via the app. The court issued the ban, noting children were being exposed made vulnerable to inappropriate and pornographic material.

With more than 54 million monthly active users, TikTok allows them to create and share short videos. And some of them may contain inappropriate content. Muthu Kumar, a Madurai-based social activist, and senior lawyer stated that children were made unprotected to sexual predators in the app.

These videos often contain lip-syncing songs or dancing to music backgrounds. And sometimes, sleazy posts made their ways to other social media platforms like Facebook, ShareChat, and WhatsApp through which adult users are introduced to TikTok.

Meanwhile, in its statement, TikTok wrote: