Supreme Court asks Madras HC to decide on TikTok ban by April 24

The Supreme Court has directed the Madras High Court to decide on the fate of short-video app TikTok by April 24 or else the lower court's earlier order banning the download of the app will be vacated.

Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store had blocked access to TikTok last week after the Madras High Court refused to lift a ban on the app in connection with obscene content.

The court had also appointed Arvind Datar as an independent counsel to assist with further action against TikTok. It had set April 24 as the next date of hearing.

The company did not comment on specific queries from TechCircle.

TikTok, which is owned by Chinese content giant ByteDance, claims to have 120 million monthly active users in India. It had appealed against an April 4 order by the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court which had asked the central government to ban the app for download and bar media channels from airing clips made using the app.

The High Court had sought a ban on the app citing promotion of obscene content and child pornography apart from TikTok’s “addictive” nature. Its ruling was in response to a petition filed by a Madurai-based lawyer and social activist.

The apex court had on April 15 refused to stay the order by the Madras High Court.

TikTok also recently announced taking down six million short videos on the platform that violate community guidelines and implementing an age-gate feature to prevent pre-teens from logging on to the app.