NCW asks TikTok to ban Faizal Siddiqui

Debarati Palit Singh
05.36 PM

The popular influencer denies promoting acid attack against women.

Since its launch, TikTok has been involved in some controversy or the other. Just last week, the video-sharing social networking site was in the news after the video of popular YouTuber stand-up comedian Carry Minati roasting Amir Siddiqui, a popular content creator on TikTok, went viral where Minati had asked some very pertinent and pointed questions to Amir. After trending for a couple of days, it took an ugly turn when YouTube removed Minati’s video last week. Fans and social media users didn’t take nicely to the move and demanded a ban on TikTok.

In a fresh controversy, today, #BanTikTokstarted trending on Twitter after a video was released by Amir’s brother Faizal Siddiqui, who has 13 million followers. In the video, Faizal is spitting what appears to be acid at a girl. Users came down heavily on him and TikTok saying the video promoted promoting violence against women.

Reacting to the growing demand of user, National Commission of Women sent a letter to TikTok demanding the removal of the video and a ban on Faizal. Sharing the copy of the letter, NCW tweeted, “@NCWIndia have contacted Tik-Tok India @TikTok_IN to remove the video & delete the account of #FaizalSiddiqui that instigate committing violence against women.”

 

 

A part of the report read, “The Commission is seriously concerned about the increase in crimes against women. The video not only promotes violence against women but shows the patriarchal mindset, which would send a very wrong message to the society.”

Faisal, shared a long post on Instagram with a note which read, “My Intention was never to hurt anyone in any capacity. As a social media influencer, I realise my responsibility and apologise to anyone who was offended by the video @ncwindia.”

He said that only half the portion of the video has been shown and therefore it looks like he is promoting acid attack, which isn’t the case. “This is nothing but making people a target. Making misinterpretations and assumptions out of context is not fair,” he shared.

 

 

Almost a month back, actor Kushal Tandon had said that he wantedTikTok to be banned in India because it was made for useless people who do nothing.

Recently, Advocate Ashok Ram Kumar had filed a PIL asking Telangana High Court to ban TikTok as most of its videos were breaking the social distancing norms during the lockdown.

In March, the division bench of the High Court of Bombay had lifted a nine-month-long suspension of the TikTok accounts of popular influencers -- Faisu, Hasnain and Shadan. The ban was carried after the Cyber Cell had directed TikTok to suspend the influencers’ accounts, in July 2019. The suspension order was pursuant to a controversial video posted by the influencers, which, according to the cell, was likely to cause disharmony in society.

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