Chennai, Feb 12(NIE): Tamil Nadu Information Technology Minister M Manikandan, on Tuesday, said that the State would urge the Central government to ban the TikTok app, a highly popular social media platform. The minister was responding to a query from M Thamimun Ansari in the State assembly.

In his query, Ansari said, "The Tik-Tok mobile app has become disastrous to the culture of the State as the youth and women post vulgar videos in the app and it is spread all over the world. Various political leaders have demanded a ban on the mobile app. Hence, the state government should take steps to ban the app in order to protect the youth and women of the state.”

Responding to Ansari’s request, M Manikanadan, Minister for Information Technology, said,” The state government would take severe steps to ban the app. Earlier, we had taken steps against the Blue Whale app after putting enough pressure on the union government despite the servers being in Russia.

Similarly, the state government would take steps to ban the app by taking it to the union government,” he assured.

Tik Tok (formerly musical.ly) lets users post 15-second videos of themselves where they often enact scenes from popular movies or songs.

The app recorded over 100 million downloads in the Google Play Store.

In December alone, a counsellor attached to the 104 helpline had received 36 calls from children and adults in Tamil Nadu dealing with TikTok-related bullying, harassment and for displaying symptoms of the
onset of addiction, Express had reported in January.

In October, a 23-year-old jumped in front of a train in Vyasarpadi, allegedly because he was trolled online for dressing up as a woman for one of his TikTok videos.

The Chennai Police had last week arrested a 19-year-old painter after he made TikTok videos outside the Ashok Nagar Police station.