India Banning TikTok?! Nearly 60 Chinese Apps are Banned by the Indian Government
On June 29, the Indian Government announced that it is banning 59 Chinese-developed apps. It claimed that these apps were infringing on the “sovereignty and integrity of India” and endangering national security with activities that the apps were engaging in.
TikTok, for example, is one of the apps on the banned list. It may be surprising to many, but India has the most TikTok users compared to any other country in the world. Social media has risen dramatically in the last few years, mostly because internet use has become much more popular and frequent. According to Statista (the graph is shown below), the number of internet users in India went from 259.88 million in 2015 to 483 million in 2018, which is a 223.12 million increase!
WeChat, a multi-purpose messaging, social media, and mobile payment app developed by Tencent, is also an example of an app on the banned list. It is currently one of the world’s largest standalone mobile apps, with over one billion active users.
However, why is the Indian government banning specifically Chinese apps, and what does it mean for social media in India as a whole? Let’s dive into this new predicament and dissect the banning step-by-step.
1. The India-China conflict sparked over an unresolved land border.
Despite their early friendship in the 1950s, relations between India and China have rapidly degenerated due to the unresolved state of their Himalayan border. The borderlines, largely set by British surveyors, are unclear and heavily disputed, as was the status of Himalayan kingdoms such as Tibet, Sikkim, Bhutan, and Nepal.
Neither side accepts the current border, referred to as the Line of Actual Control, so there have been multiple skirmishes since then.
In 2017, Chinese engineers attempted to build a new road through a disputed territory on the India-China-Bhutan border (shown below).
This attempt to build on the border left to a 73-day standoff between Chinese and Indian troops, including fistfights.
Following the incident, new military infrastructure was built on the border by both countries. India constructed roads and bridges to improve its connectivity to the Line of Actual Control, dramatically improving its ability to bring in emergency reinforcements in the event of a skirmish.
The relationship between India and China has gotten worse since.
2. Chinese-developed apps such as TikTok and WeChat are being banned to protect India’s “national security.”
After a recent border clash with China at the Himalayan border, India and China border tensions have gotten unpleasant. Banning Chinese apps is part of sweeping anti-China measures after the violent confrontation.
As I said before, the Indian government said the apps were “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order.”
Zoom, the increasingly popular video communications app, is an app that the Indian government advises against using because it is Chinese.
3. So, what about TikTok?
TikTok has a lot to lose in the world’s second-most populous country. India has been the biggest driver of new TikTok downloads, generating close to 660 million installs since its launch in 2017, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower. India also has approximately 190 million TikTok users, a gargantuan statistic when compared to the country with the second-most users, the US, with 40 million users.
Randy Nelson, an analyst with Sensor Tower, says parent company ByteDance could “miss out on another 100 to 150 million first-time installs of TikTok in India” in the second half of this year because of the ban.
Akhil Bery, an analyst with the Eurasia Group, said:
“With only about 50% of Indian consumers online, India’s market represents a massive amount of growth potential,”
“Now, that has seemingly been cut off, and it is unlikely that the Indian government will walk back these restrictions.”
You would probably think that TikTok’s parent company ByteDance would lose thousands of dollars by the hour from losing so many users, and you’d be right.
This probably even applies to the other companies with banned apps as well, such as UC browser from Alibaba, Video Call apps from Xiaomi (the top smartphone vendor in India), and a Chinese app called Shareit, which allows you to share files to people you know, kind of like AirDrop.
How will former Indian TikTok stars make content now?
According to Republic World,
“The app TikTok has a huge user group as a large number of people in the country used the app on a daily basis. There were many who excelled in the talent of using the app and its features in such a way that it created nice videos. These users were termed as TikTok celebrities as their content were highly trending on the video platform.
If the app is banned in India, these TikTok celebs will have to shift to alternate social media apps in order to continue with their work. These celebrities also have a large fan following and thus they will have to cater to them by shifting their content on other apps. Apps like Instagram and Snapchat can be used to post similar TikTok videos, but they will have to adjust their material according to the tools available on these apps. Another good platform to shift on is YouTube as it is a great place to continue with their content along with not losing their followers count.”
YouTube, as said by Republic World, has become widely popular in India after millions of new people are gaining Internet connections. More Indian creators will most likely switch to other social media platforms too, such as Instagram or Snapchat.
This banning will probably not be met with happiness from many creators, but I feel that we will adjust to this new predicament.
When Vine was shutting down, for example, we adjusted as a society from the culture shock.
As the famous rapper Tupac Shakur once said,
“You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could’ve, would’ve happened… or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move on.”
