Supreme Court directs Madras HC to decide plea of TikTok app on April 2

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The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Madras High Court to decide on April 24 a plea of TikTok app seeking to vacate of its ban order.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said if the Madras High Court fails to decide on the plea of TikTok app then its ban order will stand vacated.

The apex court had earlier refused to stay the Madras High Court order that directed the Centre to ban the "Tiktok" app over concerns about access to pornographic content through it.

Last week, Google and Apple had blocked access to video app TikTok after the federal government sent a letter to the two platforms to abide by the state court's order. A court in Tamil Nadu refused a request by China's Bytedance Technology to suspend a ban on TikTok app. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had asked Google and Apple to block the app following the Supreme Court's refusal to stay the original Madras High Court order on April 3.

As per state court, the app encouraged pornography and made children more vulnerable to sexual predators. However, there were a few incidents which were reported in media about fatal accidents which happened because of the use of TikTok.

Mohammad Salman, 19, lost his life after his friend, Suhail Malik accidentally shot him while he was posing with a country-made pistol in a TikTok video. In yet another case, a man from Chennai was trying to make a video when he accidentally slit his throat on camera.

With inputs from Agencies

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