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India bans PUBG and a slew of other Chinese apps
After already banning a large number of Chinese apps in late July, India today announced it’s prohibiting 118 Chinese apps from the country.
In June, India made a loud statement when it banned the immensely popular video-sharing app TikTok along with 50 other apps, citing security concerns. Prior to that, the country was by far the biggest user of the app, with more than 13 million downloads as of May.
In July, the country purged 47 Chinese apps, including TikTok Lite, Helo Lite, SHAREit Lite, BIGO LIVE Lite and VFY Lite. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said the apps had violated data sharing and privacy laws, and added that 275 more apps were being investigated, including one of the country’s most popular games, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
The ban has now happened, with India stating in an official press release that PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, or PUBG, and the other apps “are engaged in activities which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order.”
According to MeitY, it has received numerous complaints from a number of sources, stating that the banned apps on Android and iOS were “stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorized manner to servers which have locations outside India.” Such data mining, said the country, required emergency measures, although China wasn’t explicitly mentioned.
Other popular apps that were banned include the search engine Baidu, the business collaboration suite WeChat, Tencent’s cloud storage service, Weiyun and two virtual private networks for TikTok, as well as media players and a long list of games.
The apps no doubt have left something of hole, given TikTok’s popularity, not to mention that before it was prohibited PUBG had 33 million active users in India.
For months now, tensions have been high between the two nations. Just prior to the first app bans, Indian soldiers clashed with Chinese soldiers in a border area. The fighting left 20 Indian soldiers dead. On Monday this week, India said it had dealt with “provocative” movements on the border by the Chinese army, while China stated that Indian troops had literally crossed the line and by doing so had provoked its military.
Photo: Swaminathan/Flickr
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