India banned 59 Chinese apps including TikTok on June 29, two weeks after 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese troops were killed in a clash at the LAC in Ladakh’s Galwan valley. Pakistan is a self-declared “all-weather” friend of China, and Beijing has poured billions of dollars in massive road, dam, power and port projects in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. So even if there are security or privacy concerns over Chinese apps in Pakistan, these would never be publicly acknowledged by Islamabad. Pakistan is instead worried that the content on TikTok is 'objectionable' and its youth are getting influenced – in a bad way -- by the app

TikTok, the popular Chinese app which has been banned by India, is now seeing pushback from an unlikely quarter: Pakistan.

But the Pakistani establishment’s unhappiness with the short video platform is not linked to security or geopolitical issues that are at the heart of New Delhi’s move against 59 Chinese apps.

India banned the 59 Chinese apps on June 29, two weeks after 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese troops were killed in a clash at the LAC in Ladakh’s Galwan valley, triggering the most serious crisis between the two countries in decades.

New Delhi, however, did not link the banning of the apps to the situation at the border. In a statement, India’s Ministry of Information Technology said TikTok and the other banned apps were “engaged in activities which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order”.

It’s not just India though. The US, which may be entering into what some observers have called a new Cold War with China, is also mulling a ban on TikTok, alleging that it’s a front for data mining, and all user data is shared with the Chinese government. TikTok is under scrutiny in Australia too, for similar reasons.

ByteDance, the Beijing-based company that owns TikTok, has dismissed these allegations. But there is a massive trust deficit between the western world and China in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak that originated in China.

Pakistan’s TikTok Peeve

Pakistan is a self-declared “all-weather” friend of China, and Beijing has poured billions of dollars in massive road, dam, power and port projects in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.

So even if there are security or privacy concerns over Chinese apps in Pakistan, these would never be publicly acknowledged by Islamabad.

Pakistan is instead worried that the content on TikTok is 'objectionable' and its youth are getting influenced – in a bad way -- by the app. On Monday, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) issued a warning to TikTok and blocked Bigo, a live-streaming application, following complaints of “immoral, obscene and vulgar content” that was leading to “extremely negative effects" in youth, in particular.

The regulatory body added that the responses from the companies on its earlier notices to moderate the content within moral and legal limits had "not been satisfactory”.

Earlier this month, the online battle game PUBG was banned temporarily by the PTA for being “addictive” and harmful to the health of players.