ByteDance making rounds of power corridors to save its Indian market

BENGALURU: The power corridors of Lutyens’ Delhi are no stranger to technology lobbyists armed with presentations and factsheets, ready to start talking about privacy, data ownership, intermediary liability and surveillance. They represented, so far, either Silicon Valley’s technology giants or Bengaluru’s young startups. But now, there is a new player: China's ByteDance.

ByteDance, one of China’s largest technology firms and the world’s most valuable startup at $75 billion, owns popular short-video and social media platforms such as TikTok and Helo, which are hugely popular among India’s teenagers and the pre-teen population, especially in smaller towns.

The government’s recent proposal, that dilutes safeguards provided to technology intermediaries, seeks to combat troublesome content around nudity along with fake news and hate speech, and will affect TikTok, which counts India as its largest foreign market.


ET recently reported that TikTok hired Sandhya Sharma to drive its government relations and policy initiatives in India. Apurva Mehta, who until recently was the legal counsel and director, government affairs at Qualcomm for India & South Asia, has joined ByteDance, along with Rahul Jain, who was part of the public policy team at Google India.

“If state governments start to talk about banning their apps, they’ll have to start to do something,” a senior bureaucrat told ET, adding that ByteDance has started making the rounds of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. He was referring to Tamil Nadu’s information technology minister M Manikandan’s statement in the Assembly saying they want to place a ban on TikTok and will engage with the Centre on this.

Another senior bureaucrat said he does not care whether the companies are Chinese or not, as long as they follow the law.

“These are intermediaries and will have to follow the Indian law, including removing content that is pornographic in nature. The new law is reasonable. It is the duty of the government to create awareness. Parents should know what is appropriate for their children,” he said.

Chinese video apps such as TikTok, Kwai and Bigo Live have come under fire not only in India but also in the USA, UK, Hong Kong and Indonesia for content that is often dangerously close to exposing children to nudity and possibly those who seek to coerce or groom underage users into committing explicit acts.

“We cannot comment on pending government legislation. However, we are committed to respecting local laws and regulations, and in order to better coordinate with law enforcement agencies, we are also in the process of hiring a chief nodal officer, based out of India,” TikTok told ET in an email response.

Accounting for 27% of new Tik-Tok installs between December 2017-2018, India saw downloads of the app increase nearly 25x during that time, from 1.3 million to 32.3 million, according to Sensor Tower, a market analysis firm. India accounts for 39% of its 500 million user base.

The Chinese app factory, made up of TikTok, Kwai, UCBrowser, PubG, Vigo Video and Like, has taken hold of smaller cities and towns, away from the glare of government authorities. Today, 4 out of top 5 mobile apps in India are Chinese, according to Google Play Store data.

A source, who is familiar with the matter but not actively part of the discussion, said on certain things they are willing to play ball, like taking down problematic content but on some issues they are refusing. ByteDance has not submitted its public comments on MeitY’s proposed amendment to intermediary guidelines.

TikTok may be a little late to start pacifying the Indian government. Until now, it has chosen to expand in India with barely any physical presence in the country. Facebook, its much bigger competitor, beefed up its policy team in 2018 after it faced backlash for enabling the spread of fake news through WhatsApp.