On Monday, Bytedance’s popular social media platform TikTok dismissed its entire India-based workforce, which amounted to around 40 personnel. Most of these employees assisted with operations in Brazil and Dubai. This move has not come as a shock since the app was prohibited in India three years ago. A spokesperson from the company expressed, “We have decided to shut our India remote sales support center, which was created in 2020 to offer assistance to our regional and global sales teams. We are appreciative of these employees and the impact they have had on our firm, and will ensure they are cared for during this difficult period.”

What happens to the fired employees?

As reported by ET, the individuals who have been let go will receive up to nine months’ worth of severance pay. A source close to the situation revealed to ET that the employees at TikTok India were informed that February 28th would be their final day, and were advised to search for other jobs since it was made clear that restarting operations in India would not be a possibility due to the government’s decision on Chinese applications.

A prohibition on the use of TikTok in the United States is becoming more widespread

Many attempts have been made to reduce the use of TikTok in the United States, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, because of concerns that the US user data might be shared with the Chinese government. In December 2020, President Joe Biden implemented a law that prohibited the usage of TikTok on government technology, and more than half of the US states have put in similar limits. College campuses and even some primary schools have implemented the same restrictions. The House Foreign Affairs Committee will be holding a vote later this month on a bill that aims to stop TikTok from being used in the United States.

According to Sensor Tower, a data analytics firm, TikTok has been the most popular app in the United States since 2021. Moreover, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has been negotiating with TikTok for more than two years in order to determine the best course of action after ordering ByteDance to divest TikTok in 2020 due to fears that user data may be transferred to the Chinese government. There are also several bills pending in Congress concerning this matter.

Source: business-standard