Chinese video app TikTok has apparently slacked off its whole Indian workforce. As per a report by the Economic Times, the China based ByteDance-owned application has given pink slips to 40 people this week after a call. The report stated that a severance pay of nine months would be given to the employees.
According to a source, the Economic Times said that TikTok employees in India were informed that 28 February would be their last day in the company. Soon after, they were given feelers to search for other opportunities for some time as it was conveyed that “restarting operation in India was not going to take off because of government’s stance on Chinese apps”.
The Indian employees were mostly working from other countries such as Brazil and Dubai after the Indian government banned the Chinese video making application, alongside with 300 other Chinese apps in June 2020 citing national security concerns.
Before it got banned in 2020, TikTok had more than 200 million users in India. Moreover, the Chinese app has been in news for quite some time Asit is likely to face a ban even in United States. TikTok is already been banned on federal devices and some college campuses due to security and data concerns.Conversations on the TikTok ban in America date back to Donald Trump’s presidency when he raised alarms that the video sharing app could pose a national security threat.
Also read: Worsening margins and high cost put high salaried IT sector employees under scrutiny: Report
TikTok critics in America have pointed out that China may use the platform to trace the data of its citizens.
The criticism surged during the later months of 2022, after reports revealed ByteDance repeatedly accessed US user data and planned to use TikTok to track the location of specific US citizens.
From the available information, it cannot be fully determined whether the data about the Americans has already been collected. However, it can only be claimed that the organisation intends to obtain the physical location of these people from their devices. According to a report by Forbes, the sources stipulate that the Internal Audit department is not scrutinising this information for target advisements, etc. The reviewed materials also mention the said investigation orders by senior executives of TikTok, including the CEO, Shou Zi Chew. Although, the actual nature and purpose behind this surveillance has not been disclosed by the media company.
According to TikTok spokesperson Maureen Shanahan, the video sharing application tracks the approximate location via their users’ IP addresses in order to “help show relevant content and ads to users, comply with applicable laws, and detect and prevent fraud and inauthentic behaviour”.
Add comment