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

Facebook faces more questions from CBI on data theft of Indian users

Companies News

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has sent a second round of questions to Facebook (FB), seeking further information on the alleged theft of data of Indian users of the social networking site. This follows Facebook’s initial replies on the matter to the CBI.

The agency was not satisfied with the response, which was more about the processes regarding privacy of personal data, it is learnt.

The CBI had registered a preliminary enquiry (PE) in August 2018 after receiving a reference from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

The recent query was raised on some specific points based on the evidence gathered by the probe agency. Sources in the know said the questions were around the charges of harvesting personal data of Facebook users without their consent for political purposes.

An email sent to Facebook did not elicit any response.

Besides Facebook, the CBI had also sought reply from British consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica and Global Science Research (GSR). In an initial reply, Analytica denied the allegations of breaching the data of Indians, said a source.


 The CBI is probing whether Cambridge Analytica allegedly received data from Global Science Research, for illicit harvesting of personal data by using Facebook. The data analytical firm had earlier also faced allegations that it used personal information harvested from 87 million Facebook accounts to help Donald Trump win the 2016 US Presidential election...Read More

Kashmiri students held on sedition charges for celebrating Pulwama attack

Current Affairs:

Four female paramedical students of Kashmiri-origin have been slapped with sedition charges after being suspended from a private institute here for allegedly celebrating the Pulwama terror attack by posting "anti-national" messages on an instant messaging app, officials.

The second-year students of the National Institute of Medical Science (NIMS), Talveen Manzoor, Iqra, Zohra Nazir and Uzma Nazir, were suspended for posting on WhatsApp a picture in which they were purportedly seen celebrating the terrorist attack in Kashmir that claimed the lives of 40 CRPF personnel..

The picture soon went viral, prompting the university administration to take action.

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In the suspension order, the NIMS registrar said,"You have posted an anti-national message on your WhatsApp for celebrating killing of Pulwama terrorist attack martyrs. The university will not tolerate and strictly condemns such activities. The act is grave and serious in nature."

Later, a case was registered against the four students following a complaint by the university administration, a police official said.


 The students were booked under IPC sections 124A (sedition), 153A (promoting enmity) and relevant provisions of the Information Technology (IT) Act. Senior officials are investigating the matter and appropriate action will be taken thereafter, SP (Rural) Harendra Kumar said.