IT Minister’s Firm Stance on TikTok’s Return: No Entry for Now!

Rumors of TikTok’s re-entry into India have been circulating, but the government has now clarified its position. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has made it clear that there are no plans to lift the ban on the Chinese short-video platform. Vaishnaw, in an interview with Moneycontrol, stated that there has been no discussion on the matter. He was responding to speculation about ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, preparing to return to India. These speculations gained traction after TikTok’s website briefly became accessible on some broadband and mobile networks, including Airtel and Vodafone, last month. This minor glitch sparked social media buzz about a possible app comeback, but authorities have now clarified that this will not happen. TikTok was banned in India in June 2020. The central government blocked 59 Chinese apps, citing national security and data privacy concerns. Following the ban, Apple and Google also removed these apps from their stores, and the ban was made permanent in January 2021. India had the largest user base for TikTok at the time, with over 200 million users on the platform. Before the ban, Chinese investors like Tencent, Alibaba, Ant Financial, and Shunwei Capital were the biggest supporters of Indian startups. They had invested heavily in sectors such as e-commerce, fintech, food delivery, mobility, digital content, and education technology.