Ban on TikTok app would harm free speech, China's Bytedance tells SC

Current Affairs

An Indian court's call for a ban on the popular video app TikTok will hurt free speech rights, China's Bytedance Technology Co has said in a request for the Supreme Court to quash the directive.
Bytedance is one of the world's most valuable start-ups and its TikTok app lets users create and share short videos with special effects. It has become popular in rural India, where most of a population of 1.3 billion lives.

TikTok, whose video-only interface makes it easier to use than platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, has been downloaded more than 240 million times in India, says app analytics firm Sensor Tower.

A ban "amounts to curtailing of the rights of the citizens of India...who have been using the platform everyday to express themselves and create content," the company said in a court filing reviewed by Reuters, asking for the order to be quashed.

The company's Monday filing is not public and has not previously been reported. The Supreme Court has set next Monday for a hearing.

Bytedance did not respond to a request for comment. India's information technology ministry also did not respond.

Last week, a court in Tamil Nadu asked the federal government to ban TikTok, saying it encouraged pornography and made child users vulnerable to sexual predators.

TikTok's inappropriate content was a dangerous aspect of the app, it added.


 Jokes, clips and footage related to India's movie industry dominate the platform, along with videos in which young people, sometimes scantily clad, lip-sync and dance to music...Read More

Trade ministry memo says no legal basis to ban e-cigarette imports: Report

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Economy policy

India's trade ministry says it cannot impose a ban on electronic cigarette imports as there is no legal basis for doing so, an internal government memo viewed by Reuters shows, in a boost for those looking to tap into the country's growing vaping market

This comes amid repeated calls for a ban from the country's health ministry, which urged states and government agencies last year in an "advisory" to step up efforts to halt sales and imports, warning vaping devices pose a "great health risk".

The country has 106 million adult smokers, second only to China, making it a lucrative market for firms such U.S.-based Juul Labs and Philip Morris International that plan to launch e-smoking devices in the country.

India's Jubilant group, one of whose units has the franchisee for Domino's Pizza and Dunkin' Donuts outlets in the country, is already exploring importing Juul's vaping device, a company letter shows.
Halting imports of e-cigarettes into India will be against multilateral commitments with the World Trade Organization, according to the internal government memo dated March 18.
The country must first prohibit local sales through federal regulations that "can stand the scrutiny of law", the memo adds.

Once that is done, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) can announce an "import ban", the memo said.


 As of now, the health ministry's "advisory" cannot be a legal basis for a ban, the trade ministry, which has the power to impose import bans, said in the memo that is not yet public.The DGFT did not respond to a request for comment.