Spotlight/ TikTok Challenge
38 July 22, 2019IKTOK is a popular short
video sharing social
media/mobile app which
has been in the news
recently. It was banned by
the Madras High Court
and removed from Google Play Store.
The Supreme Court has refused to inter-
vene with the decision of the High
Court, and the controversy has not died
down. It throws up several points of law
and propriety—should the Court inter-
vene and get the app removed?
TikTok enables sharing of a 15-sec-
ond video, and like Twitter, has become
immensely popular. Owned by a Chinese
company, it is said to have over 1.2 bil-
lion downloads. It is especially popular
in smaller towns and cities in India and
is known for objectionable content
which is harmful to children. Initially,
objections came up in the Madras High
Court because the app was used to
upload porno graphic material.
However, other problems too have
surfaced. There have been many deaths
linked to the use of TikTok, caused by
adventurous users trying to create sen-
sational videos.
In one case, a youth in Tumkur,
Karnataka, broke his neck while doing a
back flip and died. In another incident
in Delhi, one person reportedly shot his
friend while making a video for TikTok.
In another incident, three youths riding
a bike and trying to make a TikTok
video met with an accident, and one of
them died. There was also an incident of
a 12-year-old boy hanging himself while
participating in a “TikTok challenge”.
Most or all of these incidents can beascribed to “unintentional accidents”,
but the fact is that these accidents were
prompted by a desire to make a TikTok
video and become a celebrity overnight.
This is a matter of concern. The craze
for getting “likes” on TikTok videos, just
as on Facebook, poses such risks.
There have also been complaints ab -
out the app sharing user data with Ch -
inese authorities. But this is not sub-
stantiated and is applicable for all Chin -
ese-originating apps, computers and
em bedded software. It is not specific to
TikTok. The owners of TikTok have co -
m plained that they are being unfairly
targeted and the problem lies elsewhere.
They feel that short videos can promote
creative use of the video format of com-
munication and could be a funny pas-
time for users. Law-makers, however,
consider TikTok an intermediary and
feel it should be held responsible to
some extent for the damage it creates
to society.
While TikTok, like other social media
platforms, is capable of being abused,
whether the law should be invoked to
ban it is debatable. One school of thou -
ght is that the issue is of “freedom”, both
for users who would like to showcase
their talents and the company to do a
business of its choice. If TikTok is to be
banned, as the Madras High Court has
directed, then the ban may be consid-ered discriminatory because there are
other services on the internet which may
seem to have a harmful effect on society,
and more so on children and women.
The Supreme Court which refused to
transfer the pending case in Madras and
adjudicate on the desirability of banning
TikTok or imposing regulatory obliga-
tions may be more comfortable with
passing a judgment when the govern-
ment comes up with a regulation rather
than suggesting a solution itself.
The government, on the other hand,
may not be able to escape its responsi-
bility in bringing some form of regula-
tion with the objective of reducing the
possible ill-effects of TikTok, and letting
the Supreme Court find flaws in its
regulations in an inevitable PIL that
would follow.
Without a “proposed guideline”, the
solution to the problem will not emerge.
For this reason, it is necessary for the
government to come up with some
action plan to address the TikTok con-
troversy. Perhaps as a first step, it may
set up an “expert committee” to study
the problem and advise it.
In this context, there are multiple
issues that the government needs to
consider. These include:
Mandating that the owners of TikTok
exercise a level of due diligence thatThough the Chinese app was banned by the Madras High Court
and removed from Google Play Store, it would be in the fitness
of things for the government to give guidelines for clarity
By Na Vijayashankar
Ticking Danger
T
Most or all of the accidents related to
TikTok videos might be unintentional but
the fact is that these were prompted by
the desire to make a TikTok video and
become a celebrity overnight.