TikTok has not been unbanned in India, TechCrunch confirmed Friday, regardless of temporary web site entry that sparked media experiences of a attainable comeback after greater than 5 years.
A TikTok spokesperson informed TechCrunch that the Chinese language-owned social media platform’s ban by the Indian authorities stays in place, and the short-video platform just isn’t accessible within the nation.
“Now we have not restored entry to TikTok in India and proceed to adjust to the Authorities of India’s directive,” the spokesperson mentioned in an announcement emailed to TechCrunch.
A senior official at India’s IT Ministry additionally confirmed to TechCrunch, on situation of anonymity, that the federal government has not “unblocked or finished something” to revoke the ban imposed underneath Part 69A of the IT Act.
Earlier on Friday, a number of native media retailers — together with main Indian dailies — suggested that TikTok was making a comeback in India after its web site was briefly accessible to some Indian users. The experiences cited posts on social media from customers who claimed the positioning loaded and not using a VPN — an uncommon improvement, provided that the Indian authorities has blocked entry to TikTok since late June 2020, when it banned the short-video platform together with dozens of different Chinese language-linked apps amid rising tensions between the 2 nations.
The temporary and sudden reappearance of TikTok in India seems to be the results of a network-level misconfiguration. An identical incident occurred in September 2022, when some web service suppliers inadvertently unblocked TikTok and different restricted websites for sure customers whereas making use of a patch, a supply accustomed to the matter informed TechCrunch on the time.