An Indian court has imposed an interim ban on the download of wildly popular lip-syncing app TikTok, because it “encourages pornography”. The verdict has put the Chinese service’s future and internet freedom in the country in jeopardy.
The Madras High Court, on Wednesday, April 3, said children on TikTok were vulnerable to sexual predators.
It held that the social video app has an adverse impact on the “mindsets of children” with a potential to ruin the “future of youngsters” due to the inappropriate content it hosts, including pornography.
A series of unfortunate bans
The Indian government’s aversion towards pornography is well documentedlast year, it issued a blanket ban on nearly 827 porn sites. The monetised short-form-video social media app has sparked grave concern in other Asian countries as well; Bangladesh and Indonesia have already banned it.
The TikTok ban comes just weeks after the police banned popular online multiplayer game PUBG in Gujarat on grounds that it allegedly increased violent in children.
The has revived a longstanding controversy over moderating social media content with a comprehensive draft legislation. It has also noted a worrisome trend where democratic institutions, like Parliament and judiciary, take it upon themselves to act as the moral police.
What has the court ordered?
“Most teens are playing pranks, gaffing around with duet videos shared on split screen with strangers. The children who use the said application are vulnerable and may expose themselves to sexual predators Without understanding the dangers involved in these kinds of mobile apps, it is unfortunate that our children are testing with these apps,” noted the Madras HC in its .
Besides prohibiting all downloads of the app, the order has deemed any telecast of TikTok videos on television illegal, further urging the central government to come up with relevant legislation, similar to the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in the US.
Steps TikTok had taken before the ban
Soon after the Tamil Nadu government initiated talks of banning the app in February, for misleading children and the impressionable demographics with vulgar content”, the company clarified in a statement that maintaining a safe and positive in-app environment is its top-most priority.
TikTok received several warnings, the latest resulting in the appointment of a chief nodal officer for the app’s Indian users.
According to Business Today, in the wake of draft social media rules the government has proposed, ‘intermediary’ social media companies in India, with more than 5 million users in the country, must now set up a local office and have a senior executive in the country.
“The policy also asks these apps to moderate the content on their platforms by deploying automated tools for proactively identifying and removing or disabling public access to unlawful information or content,” the report notes.
In a report published in the Business Standard on March 31, Helena Lersch, global public policy director of TikTok, called 2019 a decisive year for expanding in India. The publication reported Lersch as claiming to lead a war room that will monitor Indian election-related activity in real time and keep all possible channels of communication open with all government agencies.
The company also tied up with Cyber Peace Foundation last month to launch educational posters on online safety for distribution in schools and colleges nationwide; this is besides introducing an in-app safety quiz in English and Hindi to help users understand safety better and equip them with tips.
How have internet freedom activists responded?
Soon after the verdict, the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), which has systematically opposed Centre’s bid to introduce laws on social media regulation, intervened “on behalf of internet users”. In a statement, the IFF on Wednesday said it would “approach the High Court” to overrule the ban.
“It often seems we are in the throes of a social (media-moral) panic. Within a we have seen the police ban PUBG in Gujarat, and now, the Honble Madras High Court has banned TikTok. We are in the process of conferring with legal counsel and will take steps to ensure that the Court considers the fundamental rights of internet users,” the noted.
Why are so many children on TikTok?
When Musical.ly, TikTok’s former avatar, first exploded in popularity nearly four years ago, it was an instant teen sensation. According to a report by the Federal Trade Commission of the US in February, a significant percentage of TikTok users are under 13.
Essentially combining Vine and Spotify, TikTok, which Chinese company ByteDance acquired in 2017, has now become a video meme-making machine; it has captured the attention of around 100 million Generation Z consumers, who can share 15-second video clips set to music. The app itself has been downloaded over a billion times around the world.
TikTok’s Android version had 17.11 million daily active users in India in November 2018. Similar Chinese apps, namely Helo, Vigo Video, Kwai, and Bigo Live, have also become popular immensely popular in the country; they, too, have criticism for allowing pornographic content on their platforms to drive growth.
Is there a validity to the claims of pornography?
TikTok accounts are public by default, which means other people can see the content users post unless users set their profiles to private. Even then, others can still message you; multiple reports of underage users being solicited to send nude images have surfaced over the years. In the era of , platforms with unprotected content featuring children can easily be accessed and exploited by child pornography rackets on dark web.
Earlier this year, TikTok paid a record $5.7 million to settle against charges that it was illegally collecting information from underage users, besides failing to ask for parental consent from underage users, neglecting to notify parents about how the app collected personal information, and denying parents’ requests to have their childrens data deleted.
TikTok reportedly received and subsequently ignore thousands of such complaints from parents before introducing the age verification feature late 2017; this disallowed children below 13 from entering but made no effort to confirm its existing users ages.
Why a safe online space for children matters
The company, ever since, has been asked to comply with the COPPA and take down any videos users under 13 upload. It has now created a separate kid-friendly portion, like Netflix, where users below 13 can’t share personal information, upload or comment on videos, chat with other users, or maintain a profile with followers. TikTok now only allows young kids to consume content, not share it.
ByteDance, backed by SoftBank, was recently ranked as the most valuable privately held start-up in the world.
For a platform that thrives on user participation, most of whom are young, these limitations stand to impact TikTok significantly, especially when its largest stars, such as Lauren Godwin, have sung duets with kids who appear under 13. There is no clarity on what the platform will do about these videos that feature underage users but are not shared directly on their own profiles.
Kids lives are increasingly online, and companies like TikTok have been all too eager to take advantage of child app users at every turn,” Democratic Senator Ed Markey, who had birthed COPPA 20 years ago, said.
Prarthana Mitra is a Staff Writer at Qrius