India Court Lifts Ban on Bytedance's TikTok Video-Sharing App

Upmanyu Trivedi, Bloomberg News

People use smartphones in Mumbai, India, on Friday, March 28, 2019. Based on the early tallies, as many as 60 percent of India’s 900 million eligible voters are expected to cast ballots between now and May 19, as the center-left Congress Party tries to seize power from the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party. As in other elections around the world, paid hacks and party zealots are churning out propaganda on Facebook Inc. and the company's WhatsApp messenger, along with Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and other ubiquitous communication channels. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- A court in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu overturned a ban on TikTok video-sharing app after accepting its maker Bytedance Ltd.’s petition for interim relief.

The app will now be made available for downloads in the world’s fastest-growing smartphone market with certain safeguards until a final decision is made. The app was banned out of concern it exposed children to pornography and other disturbing content.

“TikTok will update their privacy protection norms according to the court’s order and will address any complaint over content in three to 36 hours,” said K. Neelamegam, a lawyer representing the petitioner, a Tamil Nadu resident. “If TikTok does not meet the conditions set by the court, contempt of court proceedings can be initiated against them.”

The Madras High Court’s Wednesday order is a victory, albeit temporary, for China’s Bytedance, which was valued at $75 billion last year, more than any startup in the world. The company told the court that the ban was an attack on right to free speech of millions of app users in the country. The appmaker also said it was losing about $600,000 in daily revenue because of the ban.

“While we’re pleased that our efforts to fight against misuse of the platform has been recognized, the work is never done on our end,” a spokesman for TikTok said in a statement in response to the judgment. “We are committed to continuously enhancing our safety features as a testament to our ongoing commitment to our users in India.”

Bytedance has had more success outside of China than any previous Chinese internet company -- and growth in overseas markets will help the company live up to high expectations when it decides to go public. In India, TikTok has attracted more than 120 million users thanks to a steady stream of videos with dance moves set to Bollywood music, slapstick humor and jokes in local languages.

--With assistance from Shelly Banjo and Saritha Rai.

To contact the reporter on this story: Upmanyu Trivedi in New Delhi at utrivedi2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Arijit Ghosh at aghosh@bloomberg.net, Abhay Singh, Pradeep Kurup