In India, TikTok is mostly known for being home to videos of silly antics and movie lip-syncing. However the app currently also has much user-generated political content – a matter of which the corporate seems wary.
TikTok, owned by Chinese tech unicorn Bytedance, recently began displaying a public service announcement, or PSA, to its users when they explore for some politically relevant hashtags. The hashtags that are shown with the psa are the names of prominent politicians or political organizations, including “bjp”, “narendramodi”, “rss”, and “rahulgandhi”, among others. This coincides with the start on April 11 of India’s parliamentary election, which will occurring seven phases over six weeks.
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