MADURAI: The Madurai bench of the Madras high court on Wednesday issued an interim direction to the central government to prohibit downloading of TikTok mobile app. The court observed that pornography and inappropriate contents are made available through mobile applications like TikTok.

A division bench of Justice N Kirubakaran and Justice S S Sundar also issued directions prohibiting media from telecasting videos made with TikTok.

“The government has to answer whether union of India will enact a statute, like the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, enacted by the United states of America to prevent children from becoming cyber victims,” the court said.

The court directions were in response to a petition which sought a ban on the app stating that it encouraged disturbing content and degrades culture.

In February, Tamil Nadu information technology minister M Manikandan said the state would write to the Centre to push for banning the app, an opinion endorsed by alliance partner Dr S Ramadoss of the PMK.

