What America can learn from India’s war on TikTok Banning an app won't protect Americans

In reality, the ban probably had more to do with geopolitics than cyber security. Earlier that month, a skirmish between India and China in the Galwan Valley resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers. The battle, fought with sticks and clubs, was the first fatal altercation between the two countries since 1975 — although the two nations have long disputed the location of the Himalayan border.

“The ban was one of many steps that the Indian government took in response to the Galwan clashes,” says Manoj Kewalramani, a fellow of Chinese Studies at The Takshashila Institution. “Over 500 Chinese apps have reportedly been banned since… In general, the India-China relationship has remained deeply strained because of the continued stand-off in eastern Ladakh and broader geo-strategic rivalry. TikTok really has nothing to do with this.”

Yet even if cybersecurity was a real problem, banning an app was not necessarily the solution. “Improving cybersecurity and cyber-governance as a whole requires regulation to address a host of issues, from disinformation to the role of intermediaries and data protection rules,” says Kewalramani. “I don’t think one can discuss it simply in the context of one app… Chinese propaganda and influence operations are multi-faceted and can leverage any platform that is accessible in an open society, such as Twitter and Facebook. What is needed is broader and better governance rather than simply banning a platform.”

By the time of the ban, TikTok had become a cultural phenomenon, nurturing a new generation of content creators from poorer rural areas. Indians posted dance videos from farm fields, construction workers filmed the process of bricklaying, and housewives expressed their personalities on the app. Based on the premise that all a user needs is good content, TikTok was able to cut through class and caste barriers. “The best thing about TikTok was that it didn’t matter who you are and where you are from — if your content is good then you’d go viral,” says Sharma. “Even if you’re sitting in a small village, TikTok will show it to the whole world.”

All this was possible because TikTok had fashioned a bespoke experience for the Indian market. It focused heavily on local language content in India, as well as targeting lesser-known regional influencers such as Sharma. “Every three months, [TikTok’s Chinese managers] would hit the streets and conduct user surveys, in Madurai, Trichy and other places,” said Kumar, a former ByteDance employee. The rise of TikTok also came at a time when India had one of the cheapest internets in the world thanks to Mukesh Ambani’s telecom network Reliance Jio, which meant that Indians from all over the country could dream of becoming TikTok stars.  

“With approximately 200 million users at the time it was blocked, TikTok in India had acquired a distinct character,” says Prateek Waghre, executive director at Internet Freedom Foundation. Not only did it allow rural and small-town Indian creators to develop a global audience, but the vast audience in India also meant that foreign creators began catering to Indians, creating a “unique cultural exchange”.

When the ban severed this relationship, copycat companies raced to fill the void. The market was soon flooded with TikTok replicas: of the top 100 social apps in the Google Play Store, at least 13 were clones. Four months after the ban, Sharma received calls from the multiple alternatives including short video apps such as Josh, MX Takatak and Moj, the last of which was launched within days of the TikTok crackdown. Sharma chose to work with Moj, where his following eventually grew to more than 8 million.

A few months later, Instagram launched Reels and YouTube came out with Shorts, offering creators more options to choose from. But this in turn split creators and users across a wide range of platforms. “The resulting fragmentation — with a split between global and Indian audiences, as well as splintering of domestic audiences across different apps — meant the cross-cultural networks effectively dissipated,” said Waghre. “Since then, many of the domestic alternatives have either merged, pivoted or folded up, with Instagram, mainly, and YouTube, to some extent, emerging as winners.” In the end, the big American companies defeated the smaller Indian ones.

Almost four years later, the US has reached the same crossroads. Last month, President Joe Biden signed a bill forcing TikTok to find a new US owner within a year or reckon with a ban. TikTok is gearing up for a fight, saying the law is unconstitutional. Though its executives insist that it is not a security threat, the Biden administration is concerned that Beijing can demand US user data from ByteDance under Chinese national security law.

In response, TikTok claims the ban violates the First Amendment rights of 170 million US users. And some US academics agree that it is not the appropriate response to a potential national security threat. “Congress should be concerned about platforms’ collection of Americans’ data, but this ban is not a solution,” says Nadine Farid Johnson, a policy director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “China and other foreign adversaries will still be able to purchase Americans’ sensitive data from data brokers on the open market. And they could still engage in disinformation campaigns using American-owned platforms. Lawmakers should be addressing the real problem, not undermining the First Amendment.”

Many are also concerned that a ban or forced sale of TikTok could escalate geopolitical tensions between the US and China. “Such actions may be perceived as aggressive moves in the broader context of economic competition and strategic rivalry,” says Justin Miller, a professor at the School of Cyber Studies at the University of Tulsa. He suggested that this could “trigger a tit-for-tat cycle of sanctions or restrictions” that could end up affecting other countries aligned with either side. Joe Biden may think he’s outsmarting Beijing — but his own country could turn out to be the victim.

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Varsha Bansal is a technology journalist based in Bangalore, India.

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