Working with civil society, industry for better Internet: TikTok

New Delhi, Feb 10 (IANS) Popular short video-making platform TikTok on Monday said it is looking forward to continuously working with all stakeholders, be it the government, industry, academia and civil society, to achieve the common goal of having a better Internet.

“As Internet penetration continues to grow at a rapid pace across India, there is a need to sensitise and educate people about responsible online behaviour for their own safety,” Subi Chaturvedi, Head – TikTok For Good, said at an event here ahead of Safer Internet Day on Tuesday.

Owned by Chinese start-up ByteDance, TikTok has courted several controversies over the past one year.

The Madras High Court last year even issued an interim order to the Central government banning downloading of the app in India and restricted the media from telecasting videos taken using the app. The ban was subsequently lifted.

TikTok boasts of about 200 million users in India.

Participating at the event themed “Together for a Safer and Better Internet”, MyGov CEO Abhishek Singh stressed on the need for coordinated efforts by all stakeholders to create awareness about online safety.

“Only laws will not be enough. This will require joint efforts by the industry, civil society and together it can be achieved. Awareness creation is necessary amongst stakeholders,” Singh said at the event organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and supported by UN Women and TikTok.

Singh said that the government is taking a series of steps to ensure that government digital systems are safe and secure.

“This would require building secure systems, ensuring right audits are done, and public data handling systems are made as secure as possible,” he added.

The government has already launched the “Cyber Surakshit Bharat Scheme” to impart training to officials.

“Under this programme, almost 600 government officials are already trained and there is a plan of training another 600 officials to ensure all government departments wherever their services are being offered are handled in a much safer and better way,” Singh said.

“An online course for training 1,000 police personnel in cyber law and cyber forensics is being launched in partnership with NLIU (National Law Institute University) Bhopal,” he added.