TikTok was one of India’s most popular apps until it was banned in 2020. It’s a lesson in what could happen in the US too if the ban on the popular app goes ahead.

four years ago, India was TikTok’s biggest market. The app had a growing user base of 200 million, thriving subcultures, and sometimes life-changing opportunities for creators and influencers. TikTok seemed unstoppable – until border tensions between India and China erupted into deadly violence.

After the border skirmish, the Indian government banned the app on 29 June 2020. Almost overnight, TikTok disappeared.Indian TikTok accounts and videos are still online, frozen in time when the app had just emerged as a cultural giant.

In a way, it could deliver a preview of it what may be on the horizon in the United States.

On April 24, President Joe Biden signed a bill that could finally ban TikTok from the US, marking a new chapter after years of threats and failed legislation.

The law requires the company that owns TikTok, Bytedance, to sell its stake in the app within the next nine months, with an additional three-month grace period, or face a possible ban in the country. Bytedance says it has no intention of selling the social media platform and is committed to challenging the legislation in court.

Banning a massive social media app would be an unprecedented moment in American tech history, though the looming legal battle currently leaves uncertain the fate of TikTok.

But the Indian experience shows what can happenWhen a major country deletes TikTok from its citizens’ smartphones. India isn’t the only country to take this step either – in November 2023, Nepal also announced a decision to ban TikTok, and Pakistan has implemented a series of temporary bans since 2020.

As the app’s 150 million US users skip the videos, the story of TikTok’s ban in India shows that users adapt quicklybut also that when TikTok dies, much of its culture dies with it.