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What Happened When India Pulled the Plug on TikTok
The United States is agonizing over the possibility of a ban, but India did it at a stroke. Indians adjusted quickly, and Instagram and YouTube built big audiences.
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TikTok Changed His Life. Then India Banned the App. 2:25 As Washington debates a plan that could block TikTok, a content creator, Ulhas Kamathe, explains how he lost everything when it happened in India. Here’s how he rebuilt his career.CreditCredit...Ulhas Kamathe via Facebook By Alex Travelli and Suhasini Raj Reporting from New Delhi March 22, 2024 Get it sent to your inbox. In India, a country of 1.4 billion, it took TikTok just a few years to build an audience of 200 million users. India was its biggest market. Then, on June 29, 2020, the Indian government banned TikTok, along with 58 other Chinese apps, after a simmering conflict between India and China flared into violence at their border. A popular form of entertainment, which had not been the subject of political debate, vanished overnight. Now, as politicians are wrangling in Washington over a plan that could shut access for the 170 million Americans using TikTok, the example set by India gives a foretaste of what may come — and how audiences and other social media companies catering to them might respond. TikTok, owned by ByteDance in Beijing, came to India early, establishing a wide base in 2017 in dozens of the country’s languages. Its content — short videos — tended to be homey and hyperlocal. An endless scroll of homemade productions, many of them shot in small towns or farms and set to popular music, helped while away the hours across the world’s cheapest and fastest-growing mobile-data network. As it has in the United States, TikTok became a platform for entrepreneurial extroverts to build businesses. Veer Sharma was 26 when the music stopped. He had collected seven million followers on TikTok, where he posted videos of himself and friends lip-syncing and joking around to Hindi film songs. He was the son of a laid-off millworker from the central Indian city of Indore and barely finished formal schooling. His TikTok achievements filled him with pride. He felt “beyond happy” when people recognized him on the street. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT They were happy to see him, too. Once, Mr. Sharma said, an “elderly couple met me and said they would watch my show before going to bed, for a laugh.” They told him that his “show was a way out of their daily life’s drudgery.” With his new stardom, Mr. Sharma was earning 100,000 rupees, about $1,200, a month. He bought a Mercedes. After the ban in 2020, he barely had time to make one last video for his fans. “Our times together will be ending soon, and I don’t know how or when we will be able to meet again,” he told them. Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like. Alex Travelli is a correspondent for The Times based in New Delhi, covering business and economic matters in India and the rest of South Asia. He previously worked as an editor and correspondent for The Economist. More about Alex Travelli Suhasini Raj is a reporter based in New Delhi who has covered India for The Times since 2014. More about Suhasini Raj Share full article Read in app Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
TikTok Changed His Life. Then India Banned the App.
As Washington debates a plan that could block TikTok, a content creator, Ulhas Kamathe, explains how he lost everything when it happened in India. Here’s how he rebuilt his career.CreditCredit...Ulhas Kamathe via Facebook
By Alex Travelli and Suhasini Raj
Reporting from New Delhi
March 22, 2024
Get it sent to your inbox.
In India, a country of 1.4 billion, it took TikTok just a few years to build an audience of 200 million users. India was its biggest market. Then, on June 29, 2020, the Indian government banned TikTok, along with 58 other Chinese apps, after a simmering conflict between India and China flared into violence at their border.
A popular form of entertainment, which had not been the subject of political debate, vanished overnight. Now, as politicians are wrangling in Washington over a plan that could shut access for the 170 million Americans using TikTok, the example set by India gives a foretaste of what may come — and how audiences and other social media companies catering to them might respond.
TikTok, owned by ByteDance in Beijing, came to India early, establishing a wide base in 2017 in dozens of the country’s languages. Its content — short videos — tended to be homey and hyperlocal. An endless scroll of homemade productions, many of them shot in small towns or farms and set to popular music, helped while away the hours across the world’s cheapest and fastest-growing mobile-data network. As it has in the United States, TikTok became a platform for entrepreneurial extroverts to build businesses.
Veer Sharma was 26 when the music stopped. He had collected seven million followers on TikTok, where he posted videos of himself and friends lip-syncing and joking around to Hindi film songs. He was the son of a laid-off millworker from the central Indian city of Indore and barely finished formal schooling. His TikTok achievements filled him with pride. He felt “beyond happy” when people recognized him on the street.
They were happy to see him, too. Once, Mr. Sharma said, an “elderly couple met me and said they would watch my show before going to bed, for a laugh.” They told him that his “show was a way out of their daily life’s drudgery.”
With his new stardom, Mr. Sharma was earning 100,000 rupees, about $1,200, a month. He bought a Mercedes. After the ban in 2020, he barely had time to make one last video for his fans. “Our times together will be ending soon, and I don’t know how or when we will be able to meet again,” he told them.
Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.
Alex Travelli is a correspondent for The Times based in New Delhi, covering business and economic matters in India and the rest of South Asia. He previously worked as an editor and correspondent for The Economist. More about Alex Travelli
Suhasini Raj is a reporter based in New Delhi who has covered India for The Times since 2014. More about Suhasini Raj
