Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has banned TikTok, WeChat, and several dozen other China-based apps it views as “engaged in activities … prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India,” according to India Today. A total of 59 apps are on the banned list.
India is a huge market for TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance. According to SensorTower data from April, 30 percent of TikTok’s 2 billion downloads came from India. Messaging app WeChat, owned by Chinese internet company Tencent, has more than 1 billion users worldwide.
TikTok and WeChat did not immediately reply to requests for comment Monday.
It’s not the first time India has banned TikTok. Last year, the government instructed Google…