TikTok India: The Beasts And The Beauty

I have such a love hate relationship with TikTok in India! It's hard to explain, lets talk about love, being an activist using Social Media for Social Change I have had experiences across the country. One of the most frustrating parts was the complexity of social media apps, for Twitter, one needs to be able to write, for Facebook and Instagram you need both the ability to write and create good pictures/videos on your own. TikTok changes that, it's such a simple app that it is quite difficult not to be able to create content on it.

This provides a unique opportunity to a vast majority on Indian youth, the ones who don't have access to good education, do not have any tech mentors to guide them through complex apps (Mostly in English. Yup Facebook/Twitter the whole lot, you can't just put translation when it comes to Indian languages, you need to make it creative and cool).

It's an opportunity they have never had before, to share their expression with the world!

But they have no clue of how to do it responsibly! In the pressure to get maximum views they create #extreme content, be it in speech, or in action or both. Sadly they have no social network to protect them when the police comes looking for them or when the hospital bills pile up! The popularity of TikTok influencers only remains till they can create videos, the second they are in Jail or on a hospital bed the millions of viewers just move their thumbs to the next influencer.

So who is responsible for these kids? The platform? The Government? The Society? (in an ideal world all of them) in India, it's just there parents. Yeah the very well known stars of TikTok today are forgotten just as easily as they became start.

Legally we can't blame anyone, the platform saves itself behind guidelines that no one reads but every one accepts. The government can't go hard on the platform (as ByteDance provides employment to 500 Indians, (so what if 50,000 get hurt in the process) also the Government has already failed young people so no hi hopes there. Society has also marginalized them, except when Zoya Akhtar makes a movie about them, or Anurag Kashyap recognizes them in his shoots.

So do they matter?

(This blog is dedicated to Hasnain Khan, Shadan Farooqui and Faisal Shaikh, they are members of *Team 07* and have a following of 40 million, presently they have to deal with an FIR filed by Shiv Sena, also TikTok has suspended their accounts)



Just As I was about to finish this blog, NEWS of a youth in Bihar dying while shooting a TikTok video came across. I honestly hope the platform wakes up to the need of the hour.