India on Monday banned 59 China based apps from the country saying security reasons and now many in the United States are also appealing the government to do the same.
After the India-China clash that has been going on for a while, Indian Government took a huge step to ban a few China based apps from the country. India banned 59 apps which includes popular apps like TikTok, beauty plus, UC browser, Share it, Club factory and many more. Indian government said that these apps were prejudicial to sovereignty, integrity and security of the country.
The ban comes after the clash between India and China over the Line of Action Control in the Galwan Valley, Eastern Ladakh. The clash got intense from the June 15th 2020 after the Chinese PLA troops killed 20 Indian soldiers in the violent attack. People of India started anti-China protests and movement like Boycott Made in China products.
Soon after, the government of India cancelled all the government contracts with Chinese firms. And now on Monday the government and ministry of Information and Technology banned 59 Chinese apps from the country including TikTok.
Many of the United States government have acknowledged the fact that India banned Chinese apps by tweeting on their social media handles.
Republican Congressman Rick Crawford said that “TikTok must go and it should have been gone yesterday.”Not just this even before the ban, Robert O’Brien who is the US National Security Advisor has mentioned that Chinese Government is using TikTok for its own purposes. He also said that the users of TikTok who are criticizing the Chinese Communist Parties or Beijing’s policies in their content are being removed or deleted from the app, this shows the connection of Chinese government in the short video platform owned by a Chinese.
More than 40 million Americans use TikTok. At least two bills are pending in the US Congress to ban federal government officials from using TikTok on their cell phones, reflecting such a sentiment can gain momentum in the US after India’s decision.
Many news channels also posted the news of India banning 59 Chinese apps on their social media platforms asking the US government what is the country doing in the same regards. Fox News tweeted the news of Indian banning the apps and saying that India is leading the way for other countries and what is US planning to do now.
Forbes also wrote an article that the new update of iOS 14 and the release of their new clipboard warning, TikTok has been seen abusing the clipboard in an extraordinary way. TikTok has said that the privacy of the users is their priority back in April. This is an invasive act by TikTok said Forbes.
Author Gordon Chang said that India just banned 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok. “Why can’t the US do the same?” he asked.
In April legislation was introduced by Republican Senator which prohibits federal employees from using social media platform TikTok on government issued devices. The Senator also specified that if any of the Chinese Communist Party members arein the leadership of the app, so by law it is required to share user data with the government. Not just that the TikTok has also admitted that it has sent user data to the government which is a major security risk for the Americans.
What kind of data is TikTok collecting?
TikTok collects data which it is not required to collect or is of no use for the apps permissions. Apart from the usual images and posts TikTok also collects the information on the messaged you send, the apps that use, the data of the apps you use and also the sites you visit. Not just that it also collects your search history, keystrokes, location data and a lot more. These are the confirmed data it collects and maybe there is a lot more of it we don’t know. Whole our life is stored in our phones and vice versa. It not just collects but also stores this information and data.
By Deepika Agarwal
