Image source: Economic Times, tincture.io
India has recently decided to retain its ban on TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps following responses from the companies on issues such as compliance and privacy. This permanent ban comes since the ministry’s June order stated that the apps were “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order.”
This has affected ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, and its operations in India.
“We initially hoped that this situation would be short-lived…we find that has not been the case,” ByteDance wrote in the memo to staff in India, seen by Reuters.
“We simply cannot responsibly stay fully staffed while our apps remain un-operational…we don’t know when we will make a comeback in India”
Prior to this, ByteDance had spent $1 billion on its operations India and had since become one of the fastest-growing social media apps.
“It is deeply regretful that after supporting our 2,000-plus employees in India for more than half a year, we have no choice but to scale back the size of our workforce,” it said but gave no further specifics.
