Yes, some of them are somewhat hyperbolic like the Apple keyboard thing which was apparently related to some sort of anti-spam feature, but in general that makes TikTok a privacy mess, which is undoubtly true but not really grounds for a national ban on the basis of security. By that logic you'd have to throw half the app store out.

> By that logic you'd have to throw half the app store out.

You almost got it. We do indeed need to make it harder to spy on people. Not doing anything is not the better option right now.

The ban makes perfect sense when you add the current India-China conflict and PRC's National Intelligence Law into the mix.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/beijings-new-national-intelligen...

> not really grounds for a national ban on the basis of security

All Chinese companies are completely at the mercy of CCP. No two ways about it. If tomorrow a War does break out between India and China, then the CCP can utilize these apps to spread propaganda to influence Indian public against the Government. Foreign interference is grounds for strengthening National Security. And this ban is not from the Government alone. Indians have literally been demanding a boycott of Chinese apps and goods for well over a year now! So it is actually the Government which has acted late!

You can read more about it here: https://www.thequint.com/tech-and-auto/tech-news/tiktok-app-...

It is not easy to get an app rating to go down from 4.9/5 to 1.3 within few days on Google Play Store when it has close to 1.5 billion downloads. You can imagine the anger among the Indian public.