New Delhi:  TikTok launched in India in 2018, TikTok has 120 million active users in India, particularly youngsters in small town and cities. It is being largely used to capture and share moments through short videos clips decorated with fun stickers and filters. However, the furore over TikTok emerged since it has been accused of encouraging pornography.

With the Supreme Court refusing to stay the Madras High Court order early this month, to ban social media platform TikTok for encouraging pornography, the Ministry Of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) has directed Google and Apple to remove the social media app from their respective app stores in a bid to prevent further downloads.

Following the Madras High Court’s order, TikTok had reached out to Supreme Court for a stay on the order but the appeal was rejected on 15 April on grounds that the matter was subjudice.

Both TikTok and its Lite variant, which was recently launched for users with entry level Android phones in India, are no longer listed on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. However, the apps can still be downloaded from web-based third-party app stores like Apk Mirror and Apkpure.