Hugely popular video app TikTok is no longer accessible on Google platform. The move came hours after a court in Tamil Nadu refused a request by China’s Bytedance Technology to suspend a ban on its TikTok app. The state court had on April 3 said that the app encouraged pornography and made child users vulnerable to sexual predators. The app was still available on Apple’s platforms late on Tuesday, but was no longer available on Google’s Play store in India.
TikTok, which allows users to create and share short videos with special effects, has become hugely popular in India but has been criticised by some politicians who say its content is inappropriate. It had been downloaded more than 240 million times in India, app analytics firm Sensor Tower said in February. More than 30 million users in India installed it in January 2019, 12 times more than in the same month last year. Jokes, clips and footage related to India’s thriving movie industry dominate the app’s platform, along with memes and videos in which youngsters, some scantily clad, lip-sync and dance to popular music.