Once Accessed, TikTok Denies Coming Back In India

JAKARTA - The Indian people were surprised by TikTok's return to the country. This has led to speculation that the government has lifted the ban on the operation of the application.

However, TikTok denied the speculation. To TechCrunch, TikTok said the emergence of their popular video platform to India was a mistake. Until now, the ban from the government is still in effect.

"We have not restored access to TikTok in India and continue to comply with the direction of the Government of India," the unnamed spokesman said in a statement quoted on Saturday, August 23.

A senior official at India's Ministry of Information Technology (IT) also confirmed the same thing. He stated the government had not "blocked or done anything" to lift the ban on the operation of TikTok.

For information, the emergence of TikTok occurred on Friday, August 22. A number of local media said they could access TikTok without using the VPN.

In fact, the Indian government has blocked TikTok since June 2020. This ban was imposed with dozens of other applications made or owned by Chinese companies due to conflicts between the two countries.

After being investigated, it turns out that the sudden and very brief appearance of TikTok occurred due to configuration errors at the network level. This incident is known to have occurred in September 2022.

At that time, several internet service providers accidentally unblocked TikTok and other banned sites while implementing patches.

Sources familiar with the matter confirmed that the incident this time was caused by the same thing.