Apple and Google yanked TikTok in a giant market over worries about pornography

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TikTok has been removed from the Apple and Google app stores in India.

• Apple and Google have pulled popular video sharing app TikTok from their app stores in India amid pornography fears.
• Earlier this month, the Madras high court asked the government to ban the app, saying it encouraged pornography and made young users vulnerable to sexual predators.
• India is one of the top markets for the app. Business Insider recently reported that more than 40% of the app's new users in 2018 were from India.

Apple and Google have pulled popular video sharing app TikTok from their app stores in India amid pornography fears.

Quartz India reported early Wednesday morning that TikTok was unavailable for download on both the Google and Apple store. Business Insider contacted Apple and Google for comment but did not immediately hear back.

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Earlier this month, the Madras high court asked the government to ban the app, saying that it encouraged pornography and made young users vulnerable to sexual predators. Its creator, Chinese company ByteDance, urged the court to stop this ban on the grounds that it would go against freedom of speech rights in India.

In its Supreme Court filing, Bytedance said that a "very minuscule" proportion of TikTok content was considered inappropriate or obscene. Bytedance did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Read more: TikTok was bigger than Instagram last year after passing the 1 billion download mark

India is one of the top markets for the app. Business Insider recently reported that mor than 40% of the app's new users in 2018 were from India, citing data from app analytics site Sensor Tower. There are more than 120 million TikTok users in the country, the firm said, and 500 million worldwide.

The case for a national ban will go to the supreme court in India on April 22.

"We have faith in the Indian judicial system and we are optimistic about an outcome that would be well received by over 120 million monthly active users in India, who continue using TikTok to showcase their creativity and capture moments that matter in their everyday lives," the company said in a statement to the press, as reported by Quartz India.

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