Soon, she posted up to nine videos a day of herself dancing as lip-syncing to Hindi songs. She picked up nearly 8,000 followers in a matter of months. “I never thought I could sing, dance, or make all these faces,” Lall told CNN Business.
Then, India, on June 29, suddenly banned TikTok. The app, which is owned by a Chinese company, was banned in the country for one of dozens of days after a violent border clash between India and China killed at least 20 Indian soldiers. Several of China’s most popular services, including WeChat messaging platform and Weibo social media site, were also banned.
The TikTok app no longer appears in app stores in the country, and those who already have it see an error message that says it “complies with the Government of India’s directive.” The app went off app stores and users started seeing the message the day after the ban was announced.
Lall said the ban took a source of immense positivity in her life. It is a sentiment that is shared by others in India who spoke with CNN Business. Almost overnight, hundreds of millions in India were suddenly required to learn to live without an app that was once described as “the last sunny corner of the internet.” And her experience could prove to be a harbinger of what is coming in the United States.
“You lose track of time. Hours go by, you do not realize it. It’s very fun,” Lall said. “We still hope TikTok will return.”
President Donald Trump is now considering a similar course of action as he escalates his long-running battle with China over technology and security, signing an executive order last week that would ban TikTok in 45 days if it does not find a U.S. buyer. While India’s ban was triggered by a military conflict and followed by nationalist public calls for a boycott of Chinese products, Trump’s order – citing security threats that experts say is largely theoretical or indirect – does not have the same basic will of support Americans hand.
News of a potential ban sent American TikTokers into a frenzy (like “going cray cray,” as one creator put it) trying to figure out how they could port on their apps to other apps like Instagram or YouTube. (Trump has targeted at least one other app that India has already banned, WeChat, and concerns about Chinese Americans using it to communicate with family abroad.)
While US TikTok users may be worried about this worst case scenario, the people in India are already living it. 200 million TikTok users from India – twice as many as the app has in the United States – have spent nearly two months in a largely fruitless search for alternatives. Instagram-owned Instagram immediately took in money by launching its TikTok copycat, Instagram Reels, in India within a week of the ban. Instagram also made Reels available in the United Sates following Trump’s proposed action.
But self-professed TikTok addicts say it just isn’t the same.
As in the United States, the announcement of the ban in India led to a flurry of influencers who hastily posted videos asking their TikTok audience to follow them on Instagram, YouTube or other platforms.
“At the moment, there is certainly no one who can get close to TikTok,” said Abhay Jani.
Jani, 24, downloaded TikTok a few years ago and said he would spend a maximum of two hours a day watching videos on the app, normally reviewing the screen time constraints he had set for himself. He enjoyed going “rabbit holes” of the Indian internet like farm TikTok, where he says farmers around the country would post videos of various agricultural techniques and activities.
“I mean, I’m addicted to it,” he said.
Jani has since tried some of the homegrown Indian alternatives such as Chingari, Mitron and Moj, but says that its user interface and recommendation algorithms do not yet meet TikTok’s standards. He visits them only a few times a week.
Lall has also tried a variety of different apps, including an Indian named Roposo, American video platform thriller, and of course Instagram Reels. Their latest discovery is a karaoke app called StarMaker.
“They’re all useless, they’re really bad,” she said, citing several problems, including a relative lack of viewership and a poorer selection of filters. “TikTok was TikTok.”
Losing India is a huge blow for TikTok. The country’s 700 million internet users make it to the second largest market in the world after China, one that has put tech companies over half a billion dollars in for a foot.
TikTok was installed 26.4 million times – an average of 660,000 installations per day – and generated about $ 317,000 in gross revenue from in-app purchases in India in the six weeks leading up to the ban, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower.
This is not the first time that TikTok has been banned in India. It was banned from app stores in the country last year after a court ruled the child could be exposed to adverse content, but was reinstated less than two weeks later after TikTok successfully appealed the decision.
ByteDance, the Chinese parent company TikTok, has about 2,000 employees in the country.
“Our employees are our greatest strength, and their well-being is our highest priority,” TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer said in a blog post following the ban. “We will do everything in our power to restore the positive experiences and opportunities they can be proud of,” he added.
TikTok is working with the Indian government to address their concerns and remains committed to complying with local laws, the company’s Indian chief, Nikhil Gandhi, said in another post late last month.
“We have not shared any information of our users in India with any foreign governments, nor have we used such data in any way that would compromise the integrity of India,” he said. “Furthermore, even if we are asked in the future, we would not do that.”
TikTok has backed down from the Trump administration’s claims that it is a security threat, calling it “unfounded.” To emphasize its independence from China, TikTok quoted the recently hired U.S. CEO as saying that it “has never provided user data to the Chinese government, nor would we do so if asked.”
Despite the pain of losing TikTok and the lack of viable alternatives, Lall agrees with the Indian government’s decision to ban the app.
‘What’s up [China] doing is wrong, “she said. We’re glad that … the ban happened but yet we have that hope [TikTok] will be back, we’m waiting for it. ”
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