Will TikTok Return To India? IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw Clears The Air
IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw confirms TikTok will not return to India. Government dismisses speculation of ban lift, calling it a technical glitch.
IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has ruled out TikTok’s return, confirming the ban in India remains permanent.
There are no longer any rumors that TikTok will return to India. The government has no intention of lifting the ban on the short-video platform, according to Union Minister of Information Technology and Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw.
No Plan To Lift The TikTok Ban
Vaishnaw denied the rumors in an interview with MoneyControl, stating that the issue "doesn't even hold enough importance to be discussed within the government." "There is absolutely no proposal which has come from any quarters," he continued.
What Caused the Speculation to Begin?
When TikTok's official website was momentarily accessible to some Indian users last month, the commotion started. Memes, reels, and rumors of the app's relaunch went viral on social media as a result of the technical issue.
Officials from TikTok clarified, however, that the visibility problem was entirely unintentional and unrelated to a possible relaunch in India.
TikTok Ban: A Retrospective
Amid worries about data privacy and national security, TikTok and 59 other Chinese apps were first banned in India in June 2020. In January 2021, the ban was made permanent and the apps were taken down from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.
With more than 200 million active users, India was TikTok's biggest market at the time of the ban. The same thing happened to other ByteDance-owned apps like Resso and CapCut.
The bottom line
Both the Indian government and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, have confirmed that there are no plans to bring the app back to India, despite online rumors to the contrary. For now, the ban remains firmly in place.
