In recent years, TikTok, a popular short-video-sharing app has faced legal pressure from several countries over concerns surrounding user privacy and data theft. As a result, many regions and countries have banned the application.
India was the first country to ban TikTok in June 2020 after several incidents of domestic violence, animal abuse, racism, child abuse, and misogyny surfaced on the platform. The Indian Ministry of Electronics and IT issued a ban on 59 apps developed by Chinese companies, including TikTok. This ban led to the removal of over 200 million monthly active users of TikTok from the Indian market.
In 2022, the Taliban also banned TikTok in Afghanistan, citing that it deviates youth. Similarly, in Nepal, the government banned TikTok in November 2023, citing concerns that the app disrupts harmony and hurts family and social structures. Over the past four years, there have been around 1,600 cases of cybercrime related to TikTok in Nepal.
The Somali government also asked telecommunication companies to block access to TikTok and the messaging app Telegram in 2023, citing that these platforms can spread extremist ideology, depraved images, and content offensive to Somali and Muslim culture. Pakistani authorities have temporarily banned TikTok at least four times since 2020, with concerns that the application contains unethical content.
Furthermore, some countries, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Netherlands, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and Norway, have asked officials to remove TikTok from government-provided devices to ensure cybersecurity. However, these countries have not yet banned TikTok on a large scale.
Similarly, the European Parliament (EP), European Commission (EC), and EU Council have banned TikTok on their devices and even advised lawmakers to delete TikTok from their devices. In the US, government agencies and the military have been ordered to remove TikTok from their devices and federal systems due to concerns about data security. In May 2023, Montana became the first state to ban TikTok, but the ban faced controversy, and a group of users filed a lawsuit. Later, Judge Donald Molloy blocked the TikTok ban in Montana on the grounds of violating users’ freedom of speech.
Recently, ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, faced another major hurdle when the US passed a bill forcing the company to sell TikTok or leave the US market.