Does $500,000 daily loss to TikTok matters?

India's ban TikTok is resulting in "financial losses" of up to $500,000 a day for its developer says, Beijing company Bytedance, and with this it has put more than 250 jobs at risk, the company said in a court filing. Whereas, Bytedance, a worth of about $75 billion, was considering a public listing in Hong Kong this year. Madras high court lifts the ban on further downloads of the app

TikTok allows users to create and share short videos with special effects and is one of the world's most popular apps. It has been downloaded by nearly 300 million users in India, whereas, it has more than 1 billion downloads globally, as per the analytics firm Sensor Tower. However, the ban from the Madurai court, has worried the social media industry in India as it sees legal worries mounting if courts increasingly regulate content on their platforms.

The court orders, the growing popularity has drawn criticism from some Indian politicians and parents who say its content is inappropriate. The Tamil Nadu court, which ruled against TikTok after an individual filed a public interest litigation, has said the app could also expose children to sexual predators. Earlier this month, the Madurai court has prohibited its downloads, by saying the app was encouraging pornography and advised IT ministry to remove of TikTok app from the Apple Inc and Google last week removed from the app stores.

In the filing made to India's Supreme Court on Saturday, Bytedance urged the court to quash the ban and direct the federal IT ministry to tell companies such as Google and Apple to make the app available again on their platforms. Bytedance pegged financial losses at $500,000 each day, which it said includes destruction in the value of its investments and loss of commercial revenue. It added the ban would result in its reputation and goodwill taking a hit with both advertisers and investors.

"Banning has had adverse impact on the user base of this app, losing close to 1 million new users per day ... It is estimated that approximately six million requests for downloads could not be effected since the ban came into effect," the company said in the filing.”

The Supreme Court has so far not provided any interim relief on repeated pleas by Bytedance and referred the case back to the court in Tamil Nadu, where the case will next be heard on Wednesday.

Senior Advocate Isaac Mohanlal appeared for TikTok explains, the application has an in-built security mechanism, and its machine moderation will not allow uploading of videos with obscene or nude contents with various safety features, including parental controls.

With this argument, Madras high court lifts the ban on further downloads of the app. With this the Bench of Justices N Kirubakaran and SS Sundar has vacated the interim order by the Supreme Court of India (SC), on 22 April, to ban of TikTok in the country.