Chennai: The Madras High Court has demanded a ban on popular Chinese video app TikTok. It stated that the Chinese media app is "encouraging pornography". The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court has been hearing a petition against the app. On Wednesday, the bench asserted that children who were using TikTok were ‘vulnerable to exposure to sexual predators’.
The petition was filed by a Madurai-based senior lawyer-cum-social activist Muthu Kumar who had requested the court to direct a ban on TikTok because of dangers of pornography, cultural degradation, child abuse and suicides. The judges, namely Justices N Kirubakaran and SS Sundar, have directed the Central Government to respond before February 16th.
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"Maintaining a safe and positive in-app environment ... is our priority", stressed a TikTok spokesman. He also said that the company is committed to abiding all the rules and will take appropriate actions accordingly.
The Madras Court highlighted that the most "dangerous aspect of TikTok is the inappropriate content.” It also put forward its concern regarding children coming in direct contact with strangers.
What is TikTok?
Launched in September 2016 as Douyin in China, TikTok was introduced to the overseas market one year later. The media app allows users to create and share short videos with special effects and has over 54 million monthly active users in India. The app is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Co. TikTok is also one among those companies that recently agreed to come up with a model code document for themselves to be in line with the model code of conduct for the upcoming national election.