59 Chinese apps ban

User First or Citizen?

Nobody questioned the government when it declared ‘Right to privacy’ as a fundamental right in 2017 but ironically when the government banned “59 Chinese apps” which was violating one’s privacy in 2020, users are flooded with questions like: - 

 What is the difference between Chinese apps and any other apps ?

 Why ban Chinese apps only?

First of all, banning these apps is not only the result of constant conflict on the border with this country but there are more issues with these apps that provoke the high alert to take such big decision to ban 59 Chinese apps including TikTok from India.

Tiktok and UC browser has 12 crores, active users, alone in India. After banning them, the head of the Tiktok India, Nikhil Gandhi wrote a letter to the government of India in which he mentions few important words like - democracy, integrity, user privacy, and also not sharing any data with any foreign government including the Chinese government. 

But I would like to know when anything said against or criticized China on TikTok then why the word or sentence get muted in the video and sometimes even removed from that platform?

Is this democratic?

Democracy is itself a big word that gives freedom to the people and this is how they are giving them the freedom to express their views?

Moving on, we don’t decide what we want to see on TikTok because we don’t have that option there then who decides what we see on TikTok?

Tiktok is completely controlled by an algorithm and the algorithm decides what we see there. But have you ever noticed that you don’t get to see the videos of other regions or states or countries frequently but more likely the videos are from your nearby places then how come they know your location even when you have not shared your location with them?

As it is mentioned earlier that algorithm controls everything so it directly traces your location from your SIM card/IP address. Whereas other apps like: - Arogyasetu app doesn’t trace your location until you don’t allow it.

Doing the things against the permission of the user, 

Is this democratic? 

Coming to the most important point, user’s data sharing. Do we ever wonder that Where are TikTok user’s data stored? 

Going back to 2017, China passed a law called ‘National Intelligence Law’ according to which any foreign company wants to operate in China, has to enter into JV with a local company, and have to share all the data with them. So the entire data of Chinese apps or which are associated with China like PUBG, are all stored or shared with the Chinese government. That means all of our data is stored outside of India.

Where is democracy in this? 

Where is an individual’s privacy?

Unfortunately, still few unaware users demand to get back this evil in the country, doing this they sound more of a Chinese apps’ users first and then the country’s citizens.