SC to hear plea on TikTok ban

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday agreed to hear on April 15 a plea challenging a Madras High Court order that directed the Centre to ban the “TikTok” app over concerns about access to pornographic content through it. A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna agreed to hear the plea filed by Chinese company ByteDance, which said there were over billion downloads of its app and the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court had passed an ex-parte order. The apex court had on Monday refused urgent lisiting of the plea. The high court on April 3 directed the Centre to ban mobile application “TikTok” as it voiced concern over the “pornographic and inappropriate content” being made available through such apps. It had directed the media not to telecast video clips made with TikTok. The app allows the users to create short videos and then share them. It had asked the government if it would enact a statute on the line of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act in the US and posted the matter for further hearing on April 16. (PTI)