More than seven months after India issued a nationwide ban on TikTok, the app significantly reduced its staff in the country. On Tuesday, Nikkei Asia reports that TikTok is “essentially” withdrawing from India, citing sources familiar with the company.
A TikTok spokesman is willing to confirm comments that he is reducing his staff in India, but disputes the details of Nikkei‘s report.
A TikTok spokesman said in a statement The edge: “Given the lack of government feedback on resolving this issue in the next seven months, it is with deep sadness that we have decided to reduce our workforce in India … [We] hope to get the chance to reload TikTok in India to support the hundreds of millions of users, artists, storytellers, educators and artists there. ”
It is unclear how many employees TikTok will retain. Nikkei reported that most local employees would be laid off. Printed by The edge, the company did not explain how many employees will be left in India.
India was previously a major market for TikTok, owned by Beijing-based firm ByteDance: 30 percent of TikTok’s downloads came from India as of April 2020. As of June, the app had about 167 million users in the country.
TikTok has been banned in India since June 29. In its statement, the country’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology stated that the apps “are engaged in activities detrimental to India’s sovereignty and integrity, India’s defense, state security and public order.
ByteDance did not indicate at the time that they would draw plans. Following the announcement, the head of TikTok India has statement claims that the company did not share the Indian users’ information with the Chinese government and that its practices comply with the requirements of India’s privacy and security regulations. “We have been invited to meet with relevant government stakeholders for an opportunity to respond and submit explanations,” the statement said. “We attach the utmost importance to the privacy and integrity of users.”
This was not TikTok’s first quarrel with the Indian government. Indian lawmakers, including Tamil Nadu’s Minister of Information Technology, have called for the app to be banned in early 2019, citing concerns about the behavior of teenagers and young adults on the service. Apple and Google removed the app from their respective stores in India in mid-April, following a state court request.
The ban was lifted just over a week later and had no effect on people who had already used TikTok; it only prevented new downloads. Nevertheless, TikTok claims that it suffered up to $ 500,000 in losses every day.
“We are committed to continually improving our security features as proof of our continued commitment to our users in India,” ByteDance said following the lifting of the ban.
Other countries have long had problems with TikTok. The Trump administration attempted to block transactions between ByteDance and U.S. companies last year, but was barred by the courts. Several U.S. government agencies have banned the use of the app on government-issued devices.