India banned 59 Chinese mobile apps, including rising social media service TikTok, as escalations between the two nations worsen.
TikTok, whose parent company is Beijing-based ByteDance, has built a huge audience in India thanks to expanded funding aimed at increasing its global presence, according to the New York Times.
The decision to ban the app came Monday after the Indian government accused China of secretly transmitting user data to foreign servers. The move also comes on the heels of a recent border clash with Chinese troops in the Himalayas that left 20 Indian soldiers dead.
The social media app, which lets users upload and share short-form videos, was installed more than 610 million times in India. By comparison, users in the United States have installed the app 165 million times.
Beijing has pushed back on the decision, saying it’s “strongly concerned” about the ban.
Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, said it’s India’s responsibility to protect the rights of international investors and that authorities were checking and verifying information related to the situation.
Indian officials have previously expressed other suspicions about TikTok and removed it from app stores last year after a court ruled it was spreading pornography. It was later reinstated, but Indian politicians have continued to criticize the app, suggesting it’s a platform to spread hateful material.
The Chinese Communist Party also has a history of banning outside media from its borders, including several social media giants out of Silicon Valley, to tighten online censorship.
[Opinion: India got it right: TikTok is evil]
