Chennai: Highlighting the danger involved in the use of TikTok mobile app, the Madras high court, as an interim measure, has directed authorities to prohibit the downloading of the app.
A division bench comprising Justices N. Kirubakaran and S.S. Sundar who gave the directive said, “The media is prohibited from telecasting the videos made using TikTok mobile app. The government has to answer whether the Union of India will enact a statute, like Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, enacted by the United States, to prevent the children becoming cyber/online victims”.
The bench posted to April 16, further hearing of a Public Interest Litigation, which sought a direction to the authorities to ban the TikTok mobile app which was containing degrading culture and encouraging pornography besides causing pedophiles and explicit disturbing content, social stigma and medical heath issue between teens.
The bench said it was the contention of the petitioner that TikTok, the mobile application has been created by Byte Da-nce, a China company and it was launched as “Dou-yin” in September 2016.
Subsequently, it was introduced in the overseas market last year and it spread like a virus and 500 millions of people were using the said TikTok application. It was stated that 104 millions users had downloaded the app. In India, youngsters and children were using TikTok application and they were vulnerable in that application, the bench added.
The bench said majority of the teens were playing pranks, gaffing around with duet videos sharing with split screen to the strangers.
The children who use the said application were vulnerable and may expose them to sexual predators. It was stated that the governments of Indonesia and Bangladesh have already prohibited use of TikTok application.
Citing some of the recent incidents of suicide, the bench said before many tragic incidents would occur, the government has to take appropriate steps. The government has got the social responsibility to prevent these kinds of applications and also take action against the persons, who were making use of it. “As an interim measure, the authorities are directed to prohibit downloading of TikTok mobile app”, the bench noted.
