Technology - A phenomenon that keeps evolving every day. Every minute we make leaps and bounds with the Artificial Intelligence that we have made. These discoveries, then, are further simplified into smaller packages and provided to us as applications that solve our problems and are easy to use. That’s what Applications are - tools. Tools that help in the betterment of our daily lives. These tools, in the right hands, can pave the way for humans to achieve a reality better than what we currently have. However, we being humans have found a way to economize this technology and make it more about individual achievements rather than collective progress.
With that being said, here we are in the 21st Century, where battles are fought based on religion, race and, culture, making you rethink the era you were born in. Where wars start because of a silly thing such as an app ban but no one cares about the injustice to an entire nation. Sadly, this is the bitter truth we have to accept. The most famous of these App bans are the ones imposed by the Indian Government against the apps provided by the Republic of China. Let’s look into it.
Ban on Chinese of Apps:
The obvious reason for the ban was major security and privacy hazards that were caused by most of the banned apps. As mentioned earlier, an application is a tool. A tool that is designed to help and relieve users of their problems but at the same time can also hinder and aggravate the simplest things. The Government of India thought that these apps were too dangerous to be kept in the hands of their citizens as there could be a chance that all their data was being collected and used for illegal purposes. Plus, the long history of hostility between the countries did not help much in neutralizing this situation.
The IT ministry of India banned over 59 apps, including popular apps such as TikTok, Shareit, and Cam Scanner. This received a mixed reaction from the citizens, some praising the government for their measures to eliminate threats and promote Indian apps and some who were still wondering what the benefit was with banning these apps and relieving tensions between the countries. But this was a step made by the Indian government to pave the path to make India an IT Superpower. “Make in India” was not just a slogan now, the necessary apps had to now be made by Indians to provide alternatives to their Chinese counterparts.
This was also a good step made by the government to make the citizens realize the importance of internet privacy and security. It is imperative to make sure you know what you are sharing about yourselves on the internet, now more than ever.
Let’s see the impacts of these actions:
For China, India was the biggest market for their application market. Apps like TikTok and Shareit were extremely popular with the majority of the populace in the country. But since the rise of “Make in India”, India has been making efforts to put itself in the race of becoming a superpower of the world. Although, some say the app ban was imposed due to the border issue at Ladakh as a way of getting back at the Chinese government.
Even though we are safe from the Chinese government stealing our data, what’s stopping the Indian developers from doing the same and then making more money by selling it to more countries? Are we safe anywhere in this technologically advancing era? All these questions and only vague answers. As said before, applications are tools that are given to us, some may be designed to harm us and some may just be a helping hand, but it falls on us to be vigilant and decisive in choosing and distinguishing between what hurts us and what doesn’t. We have to educate ourselves in the ways of technology. Being negligent will only harm us. It doesn’t matter which era we are in but information has always been the greatest weapon and it’s up to us to protect and prevent it from being used against us.
By Raihan Muzzammil
Editor: Saniya