Madras High Court lifts interim ban on TikTok in India

The Madras High Court has annulled the interim order by the Supreme Court to ban TikTok in India. The Madurai Bench of Madras HC, headed by judges N Kirubakaran and SS Sundar, delivered the judgement after hearing a plea filed by ByteDance, a Chinese company that owns TikTok.

The Madras HC had ordered a ban on TikTok on April 3, citing the spread of pornographic content on the video sharing platform. The video-sharing app, which claims to have over 54 million active users in India alone, has been alleged to be a preferred place for circulating child pornography in several other countries.

In response to the Madras HC order, Bytedance had filed a counter affidavit to explain the in-built security system on the platform and the steps it has taken to protect children in cyberspace, like the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in the United States.

However, the Madurai bench noted that India does not have any legislation like COPPA to protect children in cyberspace. COPPA is a US law which protects the privacy of children under 13 years of age and is managed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

(Edited by Vivek Dubey)

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