TikTok ban in India still stands, company clarifies after brief website access

TikTok has not been unbanned in India, quashing speculation confirmed by a brief return of website access more than five years after the platform was banned, TechCrunch reported on Friday.

A TikTok spokesperson clarified that the short-video platform, owned by China's ByteDance, continues to remain inaccessible in India. "We have not yet restored access to TikTok in India and continue to comply with the Government of India's directive," the company said in a statement to TechCrunch.

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According to the report, a senior official at India's IT Ministry also confirmed that the government has not revoked the ban imposed in June 2020 under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. "We have not unblocked or done anything" to change TikTok's status, the official said on condition of anonymity.

The clarification comes after several Indian media outlets reported a possible comeback, citing user posts claiming TikTok's website briefly loaded without a VPN on Friday morning.

Such accessibility was unusual, given that the government blocked TikTok and dozens of other Chinese-linked apps more than five years ago..

The short-lived reappearance appears to be the result of a technical error. Industry sources told TechCrunch that the glitch likely stemmed from a network-level misconfiguration, similar to a September 2022 incident where certain internet service providers inadvertently allowed access to banned apps during a system patch.

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