More than seven months after India banned TikTok across the country, the app is significantly reducing the number of employees in the country. On Tuesday, Nikkei Asia reported that TikTok was “essentially withdrawing” from India, citing sources familiar with the company.
Sought to comment, a TikTok spokesman confirmed that he was reducing his workforce in India, but disputed the details of the Nikkeireport of.
In a statement, a TikTok spokesman said The Verge: “Given the lack of feedback from the government on how to solve this problem over the next seven months, it is with deep sadness that we decided to reduce our workforce in India … [We] I hope to have a chance to relaunch TikTok in India to support the hundreds of millions of users, artists, storytellers, educators and performers there. “
It is not clear how many employees TikTok will retain. Nikkei reported that “the majority” of local employees were fired. Pressed by The Verge, the company has not clarified how many employees based in India will remain.
India was previously a major market for TikTok, which belongs to Beijing-based company ByteDance: 30% of TikTok downloads came from India in April 2020. In June, the app had around 167 million users in the country .
TikTok has been banned in India since 29 June. In its statement, the country’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said the applications were “involved in activities detrimental to India’s sovereignty and integrity, defense of India, state security and public order”.
ByteDance, at the time, did not indicate withdrawal plans. After the announcement, the head of TikTok India issued a declaration claiming that the company had not shared Indian users’ information with the Chinese government and that its practices were in line with India’s privacy and data security requirements. “We were invited to meet with government stakeholders for an opportunity to respond and send clarifications,” says the statement. “We place the utmost importance on user privacy and integrity.”
This was not TikTok’s first fight with the Indian government. Indian lawmakers, including Tamil Nadu’s minister of information technology, called for the app to be banned in early 2019, citing concerns about the behavior of teenagers and young adults in the service. Apple and Google removed the app from their respective stores in India in mid-April, following a request from the state court.
This ban was lifted a week later and did not affect people who were already using TikTok; it just avoided new downloads. Even so, TikTok said it suffered losses of up to $ 500,000 each day the ban came into effect.
“We are committed to continuously improving our security features as a testament to our continued commitment to our users in India,” said ByteDance, after lifting the ban.
Other countries also have long-standing security concerns with TikTok. The Trump administration tried to block transactions between ByteDance and American companies last year, but was stopped by the courts. Several US government agencies have banned the use of the app on government-issued devices.