The Madras High Court lifted a ban on the popular short video app TikTok on Wednesday, ending a three-week row between Indian authorities and Chinese tech giant ByteDance.
ByteDance, the Beijing-based company behind TikTok, was “glad” with the result which would clear way for resuming downloads of the short video app on Apple and Google’s app stores. In a statement to KrASIA, the company said the high court’s decision would be “greatly welcomed by our thriving community.”
Earlier this month, the Madras High Court asked the central government to ban TikTok, citing concerns over “inappropriate” content that was hosted on the platform. Apple and Google removed TikTok from their app stores last week at the request of India’s IT ministry.
Thought it is not immediately clear what caused the high court’s U-turn, the decision came after ByteDance revealed its plan to invest more than USD 1 billion over the next three years in India. TikTok’s global public policy director Helena Lersch told local media in a recent interview that its company would provide 1,000 jobs in India by 2020.
Before the ban, India was one the most successful case of TikTok’s internationalization. The app’s suspension reportedly caused half a million dollars in daily losses for ByteDance. TikTok has 200 million existing users in India. Nearly half of TikTok’s new users who registered in the past quarter are from the South Asian subcontinent.