Tiktok is not banned in India, TechCrunch confirmed on Friday despite causing access to a short website that caused media coverage of a possible comeback over five years later.
A Tiktok spokesperson told TechCrunch that the Indian government has banned China-owned social media platforms and that short-video platforms are not accessible domestically.
“We have not restored access to Tiktok in India and continue to follow the directives of the Indian government,” the spokesperson said in a statement sent by email to TechCrunch.
A senior official from the Indian Ministry of IT also confirmed to TechCrunch that the government “has not been blocked or did nothing” to revoke the ban imposed under section 69A of the IT Act.
Earlier on Friday, several local media outlets, including the major Indian Daily, suggested that Tiktok had revived in India after the website was temporarily accessible to Indian users. The report cited social media posts from users who claimed sites loaded without a VPN. This is an extraordinary development given that the Indian government blocked access to Tiktok in late June 2020, banning dozens of other China-linked apps, which are escalating tensions between the two countries.
Tiktok's short, sudden reappearance in India appears to be the result of network-level misconceptions. A similar incident occurred in September 2022. Some Internet service providers did not accidentally block Tiktok or other restricted sites for certain users while applying the patch.
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