Thread by @omlakhani

#The TikTok ban and the stupidity of the Indian masses.

Across social media I see people rejoicing that TikTok got banned.

To those people, I ask, do you really know what is TikTok ? More importantly, do you know what TikTok represents ?

What is interesting is that this is not the first time that TikTok got banned. Nor will this be the last time. I have a theory for this and I will share it with you.

If you live in India, you know that despite us not saying it, we live in a world which clearly has a divide.

The division could be based on religion, Hindu and Muslim.
The division could be on basis of caste, higher caste and lower caste. It is based on income and it certainly is based on rural and urban. We even find color as an important factor that divides us.

We are a racist society and we need to accept it.

TikTok represented a freedom from racism in India. For those who have really deep dived into TikTok would have realized that TikTok offered a democratic form of social media in which everyone could participate. And participate they did.

TikTok was full of videos from the poor, the rural and the downtrodden of the society. It reflected creativity of the Indian masses. It gave the shortening attention span of the Indian masses a perfect tool for enjoyment.

TikTok was a celebration. A great Indian ‘Tamasha’ re-imagined for the 21st century.

But when poor, the middle class, the less educated, the non-elite are having fun, this is somehow not acceptable to the people who truly run the country. TikTok was also on the hit list of the Indian government for a long time.

True that TikTok was a Chinese app. Perhaps they stole data from us. I wonder what data exactly was stolen from us ?

Indians steal our money everyday both online and offline, and we are unable to do anything about it. But when a Chinese app ‘steals’ our viewing preferences, we are worried ! The government ‘steals’ our data and privacy daily using the Arogya Setu app.

The ingenuity of the elite class that rule India lies in the fact that they use the power and stupidity of the same masses to propagate their agenda without them realizing it.

The same people who are rejoicing the ban of TikTok are also the people who have extensively shared TikTok videos on WhatsApp knowingly or unknowingly.

However, the interesting thing is that other apps which have Chinese origin are not banned. For example 30% of the PayTM app and the Zomato app are owned by a single Chinese company. PayTM actually holds our money which is far precious than my choice of the TikTok songs.

Soon we would see the Oppo and other Chinese phones being banned. What we forget is that most of our Apple devices are also made in China. Go to any small town or a Suburb and you will find hundreds of mobile shops displaying the Oppo signs.

Oppo is a very important partner for these smaller mobile retail shops. Hence it is very likely that Oppo will get banned.

I want to see the day when we are truly a democracy. When TikTok is treated in the same way in which PayTM is treated. When Oppo is treated in the same way in which Apple is treated.

Try banning the Apple products and aunties from South Bombay and Uncles from Lutyens Delhi would be on social media trying to fight the ‘tyranny’ of the government. As long as it is TikTok, we are fine.