Ban on TikTok app would harm free speech, China's Bytedance tells SC
An Indian court's call for a ban on the popular video app TikTok will hurt free speech rights, China's Bytedance Technology Co has said in a request for the Supreme Court to quash the directive. Bytedance is one of the world's most valuable start-ups and its TikTok app lets users create and share short videos with special effects. It has become popular in rural India, where most of a population of 1.3 billion lives. TikTok, whose video-only interface makes it easier to use than platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, has been downloaded more than 240 million times in India, says app analytics firm Sensor Tower. A ban "amounts to curtailing of the rights of the citizens of India...who have been using the platform everyday to express themselves and create content," the company said in a court filing reviewed by Reuters, asking for the order to be quashed. The company's Monday filing is not public and has not previously been reported. The Supreme Cou