TikTok shuts down its India office and fires all the staff

It has been close to three years since the Government of India banned the Chinese short video-sharing app TikTok. The company has now reportedly closed down its office in India and fired the remaining 40 employees.

According to the reports, 28 February will be the last working day for the employees, and TikTok is said to be paying a nine-month severance pay to the employees, who were in remote sales support roles.

Speaking of the development, a TikTok spokesperson told TOI,

“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.”

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The Chinese internet giant ByteDance that owns Tiktok has taken this decision owing to the Indian government’s tough stand on Chinese applications.

Various reports also suggest that TikTok might face similar consequences in the United States. In December last year, US President Joe Biden signed a law banning TikTok from government devices and more than half of US states have passed similar restrictions, with college campuses and even some elementary schools following suit.

Reports of China accessing user data to track the location of US citizens have intensified the efforts to limit the app’s usage in the country.

TikTok once enjoyed the second-highest market in India with over 200 million users, and was banned in 2020 along with 300 other Chinese apps.

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