TikTok Remains Banned in India Despite Brief Website Access

• 
  TikTok’s website became briefly accessible in India, sparking rumors of a comeback.
• 
  The government confirmed the ban is still in place with no changes made.
• 
  TikTok says the website access was due to a technical glitch, not an official unblocking.

TikTok has confirmed that its platform is still banned in India, despite a brief moment when its website appeared to load without a VPN. The sudden access caused confusion among users and media, with many speculating that the app might be making a return after being banned for over five years. However, both TikTok and the Indian government have denied any changes to the ban.

A spokesperson from TikTok clarified in a statement to TechCrunch, “We have not yet restored access to TikTok in India and continue to comply with the Government of India’s directive”. This clarification came after several users reported being able to open TikTok’s homepage, which led to widespread speculation across social media and news platforms.

Officials from India’s IT Ministry also confirmed that the ban remains active and no orders have been issued to lift it. A senior ministry official, speaking anonymously, said, “We have not unblocked or done anything” to change TikTok’s current status in the country.

The brief reappearance of the website was likely caused by a technical issue. Industry experts believe it was a network level misconfiguration, similar to a previous incident in September 2022, where some banned Chinese apps became temporarily accessible due to a system patch error by internet service providers.

Also Read: Parliament Passes Bill to Outlaw Real Money Gaming Nationwide

TikTok, owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, was banned in June 2020 under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, along with several other Chinese apps, citing national security and data privacy concerns. While the homepage may have appeared online briefly, the app remains unavailable on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store in India, and users cannot access its features.

For now, TikTok remains banned in India, and the recent activity was just a glitch, not a green signal for its return.

_{Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.}