But on 29 June 2020, Sharma lost his livelihood overnight — along with several thousand other content creators — when the Indian government announced it was banning 59 Chinese apps including TikTok. At that point the app had roughly 200 million users in India, making it the largest market outside of China. “When the ban was announced, I just spent the whole day locked up in my room and crying,” Sharma says. “I didn’t leave home for a month and didn’t know what to do.” 

In theory, the measure was a response to the perceived Chinese threat to India’s cyber security. The Indian government’s press release spoke of the “misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data”. This was an impingement on the “the sovereignty and integrity of India” and, as a result, required “emergency measures”. While there was no evidence that Beijing was actually using TikTok to spy on India, Indians were encouraged to buy “Made in India” products instead.

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.”

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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.

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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.

Yet the app has achieved neither of these things. All it’s done is create more anxiety for many of the 140 million workers registered under India’s rural employment scheme known as the “Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act” (MGNREGA), who are all required by law to use it.

Kumar, 32, has been toiling under India’s rural employment scheme for four years now: working on public infrastructure projects such as road and building construction. He typically gets paid around 2,700 rupees ($33) per month for his labour — but last month, he earned only 1,600 rupees ($19), despite working the same number of days he always does. This is because, without good internet connectivity, the app is prone to glitching or not uploading photos, which means that Kumar doesn’t get paid for the actual number of days he works.

As the sole breadwinner of his family of five, Kumar is worried about providing for his children if this problem persists. “I don’t even understand what’s going on — sometimes I get less money and sometimes I get nothing,” Kumar told me. He’s not alone: as a direct result of this app, the number of workdays registered via MGNREGA have fallen 35% from 530 million in January and February 2022 to 340 million during the same months this year.

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“There are weird technical error codes that nobody understands; numbers and alphabets that nobody really knows what they mean,” says Laavanya Tamang, a senior researcher with LibTech India, an organisation that works to improve public service delivery in the country. Tamang tells me about a group of seven MGNREGA workers in the state of Jharkhand who worked at their site every day: due to app-related issues, their attendance was calculated as zero. (The Ministry of Rural Development that runs MGNREGA did not respond to an emailed request for comment.)

As a result of this dysfunction, workers are agitated and trying to take action. Earlier this year, hundreds, from across multiple states, went to Delhi to protest the mandatory imposition of the technology, demanding that the app be rolled back. The protest lasted 40 days, followed by talks with the Government, but to no avail. “It’s like a human rights violation,” said Nikhil Dey, an activist who works with MGNREGA workers.

All this points to a bigger challenge for India. Over the past eight years, there has been a sweeping digitisation of many aspects of everyday life, from identity cards and Covid vaccinations to digital payments — all in the name of efficiency and inclusion. Narendra Modi’s administration has embraced digital governance, claiming it will make welfare services more transparent and weed out corruption. It was a key theme of India’s presidency at G20. “We in G20 have a unique opportunity to lay a foundation of an inclusive, prosperous and secure global digital future,” Modi told a group at the conference.

Yet by failing to consider the reality of rural life in India, Modi’s tech imposition has alienated ordinary people. In 2021, female rural childcare workers, known as Anganwadi workers, were mandated to use an app that led to them being overburdened with work for very little pay. It was met with protests across the country. Around the same time, female rural healthcare workers, known as Asha workers — who were on the frontline during Covid — were forced to install an app that would track their whereabouts. In many Indian states, sanitation workers have also been asked to wear a GPS wristband that would track their work hours, but many argue that such devices invade their privacy.

When it came to inoculating 1.4 billion Indians, the Government leaned on a vaccine slot-booking app called Cowin. By making it mandatory for people who wanted to get vaccinated to download Cowin, Modi left behind Indians from low-income backgrounds who didn’t have a smartphone or enough digital literacy to use the app. Concerns about data privacy also turned out to be credible. Earlier this year, the personal data of millions of Indians was exposed by a leak supposedly from Cowin — an especially problematic event in a country that did not have a data protection law until this August.

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Of course, all these projects claim honourable motives. The NMMS app is intended to curb corruption in India’s rural employment scheme, which guarantees at least 100 days of employment in a year for rural households. Considered to be the world’s largest welfare programme in absolute numbers, the scheme has more than 250 million workers registered. But over the years, it has become notorious — for corruption. One investigation found that roughly $130 million of this programme’s funds were misappropriated in four years, used for bribes or as payments to non-existent people. “MGNREGA was infested with ghost accounts,” India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said last year, adding that Modi’s government was working towards using the programme with “transparency”.

Activists and policy analysts argue that the app has been ineffective in stopping corruption. “MGNREGA is riddled with corruption — when you go to villages you will see that many work sites only exist on paper, or the job cards are fake,” said Tamang. “But the Government’s approach to solving this is that they will slap on a tech band-aid and it will be resolved, which is not an informed approach that prioritises workers.”

The Government, however, isn’t paying attention. Despite strong resistance to the app, it brought in another tech innovation earlier this year. Now, all payments have to be done through Aadhaar, India’s vast biometric ID system — a process that further excludes thousands of workers. While most Indians have an Aadhaar number, many of them have had their information entered incorrectly: with spelling errors, or the wrong date of birth. This makes them invisible to the system.

The Government first announced this mandate in February, though it has since been extending the deadline to comply with it. But the damage is already done, says Mukesh Nirvasit, joint secretary of the Rajasthan Asangathit Mazdoor Union. “On the ground, many work sites have started rejecting workers unless they have an Aadhaar card, which is depriving people of work even though the deadline for this new rule has been pushed till the end of the year,” said Nirvasit. “In my opinion, this issue will not be resolved even if they give us 10 years.”

Yet either way, India’s internet connectivity will increase regardless, with one billion smartphone users expected by 2026. And while experts believe that some of the technical issues arising from the rise of digital governance will be resolved, the larger issue of surveillance and data collection will become commonplace. “Smartphone use is growing by millions per year and eventually, in five to 10 years, everyone is going to have a smartphone — but this will not only increase surveillance but also normalise it,” said Shweta Mohandas, a researcher with the Center for Internet and Society. “There’s also asymmetry in terms of consent because what happens if a worker doesn’t give consent to their data being captured? Would this mean that they would not be able to get the job?”