TikTok sacks entire India staff, shuts remote sales support hub

Chinese short video-making app TikTok has sacked its entire India staff — about 40 employees — and February 28 will be their last working day. The ByteDance-owned platform, banned in India in June 2020 over national security concerns, told its employees they would receive up to nine months of severance package. However, most of the staff will only get three-month severance. In a statement to IANS on Friday, a company spokesperson said that “we have taken the decision to close our India remote sales support hub, which was put in place at the end of 2020 to provide support to our global and regional sales teams”. “We greatly appreciate these employees and their impact on our company, and will ensure they are supported at this difficult time,” the TikTok spokesperson added. In June 2020, the government banned TikTok along with 59 other Chinese apps citing security concerns. Since then, the country has banned over 300 Chinese apps, including WeChat, Shareit, Helo, Likee, UC News, Bigo Live, UC Browser and many more. The Centre last week blocked over 230 apps, including 138 betting and about 94 loan apps, which were traced to Chinese links. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) was recently instructed by the MHA to ban such apps, which operate through a third party link. All these apps were found violating Section 69 of the IT Act and contained materials which were deemed as a threat to India’s sovereignty and integrity. Meanwhile, US Senator Michael Bennett has urged Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai to immediately remove TikTok from their app stores, calling it an unacceptable risk to American national security. The US plans to ban Chinese short video-making app TikTok nationwide, and the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a vote next month on a bill to completely block the platform.