The entire 40-person India crew of the Bytedance-owned social media app TikTok was dismissed on Monday. The majority of the staff in the India branch served the Dubai and Brazil markets. Since TikTok was outlawed in India roughly three years ago, the decision has not come as a huge surprise.
The affected employees will be given up to nine months of severance pay, according to an ET report. “The TikTok India employees were told that February 28 would be their last day and were given feelers to look out for other opportunities for some time as it was conveyed that restarting India operations was not going to take off because of the government's stance on Chinese apps,” a source close told ET.
Attempts have been made to restrict the use of TikTok in the US, which is owned by the Chinese business ByteDance, due to concerns that US user data would be sent to the Chinese government.
TikTok was banned from government devices by US President Joe Biden in December of last year. More than half of US states have implemented similar regulations, and some elementary schools and college campuses have even followed suit.
A bill to forbid the use of TikTok in the US will be put to a vote by the House Foreign Affairs Committee this month.
Data from the data analytics firm Sensor Tower shows that TikTok has been the most popular app in the US since 2021.
Attempts have been made to restrict the use of TikTok in the US, which is owned by the Chinese business ByteDance, due to concerns that US user data would be sent to the Chinese government.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which ordered ByteDance to divest TikTok in 2020 due to concerns that user data might be given to the Chinese government, has been in discussions with TikTok for more than two years on a way forward in addition to bills that are currently before Congress.
