A Look Back at the Problem with Banning Tiktok in India

Prime Minister Modi banned TikTok and 50 other Chinese apps in 2020 stating that they endanger users' privacy and national security. Today, an increasing number of countries are seeking different types of internet sovereignty like creating a walled-off 'intranet' or routinely cutting off the internet in areas of civil upheaval.

TikTok logos are seen on smartphones in front of a displayed ByteDance logo. Source: Reuters

After being introduced to the global market in 2017, TikTok quickly established a stronghold in India, gaining more than 200 million users in just three years. However, that international success crashed into national politics in 2020, placing TikTok in the heart of a conflict over how free the internet should be. TikTok was banned in India in June 2020. Soon after, a rising number of countries and institutions of government were taking action against the app. The cultural differences have historically made it difficult for Chinese tech companies to establish themselves outside their home turf. TikTok was the first Chinese app to achieve international success, owned by a company called ByteDance.

Due to its widespread appeal, TikTok was able to acquire a billion users earlier than other social media behemoths. The rise of cyber nationalism, though, put the app on a collision path with a different trend. In June 2020, India banned TikTok and several other Chinese applications because, according to the government, these apps illegally utilized data and secretly collected user data when they were downloaded. Other nations have voiced worries about national security, including Australia and South Korea. Former President Trump even signed executive orders in 2020 that prevented WeChat and TikTok from operating in the US.

Since Bytedance is located in China, a government renowned for censorship, violations of human rights, and cyber espionage is keeping an eye on it. According to TikTok, the Chinese government has never received any user information from users in India. India targeted a widely used app, which was a huge issue because it complicates one of the most important discussions about what the internet ought to be. The degree of the internet and its openness varies across nations. So, there is a free and open model, often known as a democratic model, which implies that there is little to no state interference in Internet content, in countries like the US and Japan. India has long supported unrestricted access to information online. On the other end of the scale are nations like China and Iran where there is a strong state influence on content through the restriction of specific keywords and foreign websites. China's Great Firewall notoriously blocks websites including Google, YouTube, Facebook, and many Western news sources. But it's no longer limited to China.

Going forward, nations like Russia and India play a very important role in the tipping of the global scale. Between 2014 and 2022, many of these nations, including Russia, India, and Turkey, shifted toward less Internet openness. In 2019, Russia took steps to create a domestic internet that is not accessible to the rest of the world, which came after years of escalating government restrictions. Some news websites have been blocked in Turkey, and the country recently approved legislation granting the government extensive control over social media. India, the largest democracy in the world, also leads the world in the number of intentional Internet shutdowns. In situations of public unrest, turning off the internet is increasingly being used as a defining tool of government repression. Internet blackouts have been imposed in states like Jammu & Kashmir and Manipur to cut down internet access. Therefore, people end up having a fragmented internet when governments determine if a global wide web doesn't serve their interests.

Young Kashmiri men protest against the internet, SMS, and prepaid mobile services blockade, in Srinagar. Source: The Guardian

By 2023, people's ability to obtain information online has become more constrained by national boundaries. Now, democratic nations must rethink why open and free internet is worth defending. Instead, a platform utilised by millions of people is being threatened with a ban by an increasing number of nations. India wins from being at the forefront of technology, from supporting a democratic Internet paradigm, and from opposing dictatorship. Therefore, ceding control on that front is not in the best interests of the nation. TikTok invented a distinctively global platform. However, it was released in countries that weren't quite ready for it. It originated in a nation that has never recognized internet freedom and arrived in India when cyber nationalism was on the rise.