Madras HC asks govt to ban video app TikTok, says it encourages pornography
The Madras High Court on Wednesday asked the federal government to ban Chinese video app TikTok, saying it was “encouraging pornography”. Created by Beijing Bytedance Technology Co, TikTok allows users to create and share short videos with special effects. It has become hugely popular in rural India, home to most of the country’s 1.3 billion people. Jokes, clips and footage related to India’s thriving movie industry dominate the platform, along with memes and videos in which youngsters, some scantily clad, lip-sync and dance to popular music. Speaking to Reuters in February, the IT minister of Tamil Nadu described some of its more suggestive dance content as “unbearable”, while a Hindu nationalist group close to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has called for the app to be banned. Also in February, the BJP’s chief of information technology, Amit Malviya, said the party was tracking TikTok conversations and called it “a brilliant medium for creative expression”. The Madr...