MUMBAI, India — TikTok, the Chinese video app whose growth has been as viral as one of its lip-synced dance clips, has encountered a roadblock in India.

Google and Apple removed TikTok from their app stores in India late Tuesday after the country’s Supreme Court refused to block a lower court order halting new downloads. The lower court, based in Tamil Nadu State, is hearing a petition seeking a ban on the app, on the grounds that it spreads pornography and threatens the well-being of children.

TikTok, which has 120 million users in India and more than half a billion worldwide, has been particularly popular with children and young adults because its tools make it easy to record, share and watch short videos.

[How TikTok is changing social media.]

But it has also come under increasing scrutiny from governments around the world, including the United States, for allowing users to post objectionable content and for pushing children to share too much information with strangers.

In India, the app has been caught up in a bigger debate over the inability of social media to stop the spread of false information, the dangers to children posed by mobile technology and the vast influence of American and Chinese technology giants.

The Indian court hearing the TikTok case issued a rambling order this month reciting the petitioner’s claims that TikTok was filled with pornography, exposed young people to sexual predators, spoiled the mind and prompted people to commit suicide.

“The government has the social responsibility to prevent these kinds of applications,” the two-judge panel wrote as it ordered an interim ban on downloads of the app. The court issued its initial order without giving TikTok a chance to respond to the allegations.

“We have faith in the Indian judicial system,” TikTok said in a statement on Wednesday. The company noted that it had stepped up its efforts to remove objectionable content and had already taken down six million videos in India.

TikTok’s lax controls have also incurred the wrath of American regulators. In February, the Federal Trade Commission announced a $5.7 million settlement with TikTok over accusations that it obtained and shared personal information such as names and photos from children under 13 without parental consent.

Internet companies in the United States are supposed to seek such consent before allowing children to use their services, but India has no such regulations. That has left communities struggling to cope with technology’s influence on their children.

Last month, several cities and districts in Gujarat, the home state of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, banned PUBG, another app popular with young people. Officials argued that the game, a mobile multiplayer shooter owned by the Chinese conglomerate Tencent, distracted children from their studies. About 20 people, many of them students, have been charged with violating the ban, according to local news reports.

More broadly, India’s central government is wrestling with an overhaul of its rules governing online services. It is considering requiring tech companies to automatically censor a wide range of content and other policies that would promote Indian firms and rein in foreign tech companies.

TikTok, which is owned by Bytedance, a company based in Beijing, has come under additional scrutiny in India because of its national origin. Some Indian officials suspect that China’s government is using popular Chinese apps to scoop up private data on Indians.

“There is a belief that Chinese apps are a threat to national security,” said Salman Waris, an expert in international technology law at TechLegis in New Delhi.

But India and the United States are not the only countries concerned about the app. Bangladesh banned it two months ago as part of a crackdown on pornography. Indonesia prohibited it last July, citing objectionable content, but restored access a week later.

Mr. Waris said that restricting an app like TikTok over content it couldn’t control was a slippery slope. Other major internet platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp and Google’s YouTube struggle with the same issue and could theoretically face similar bans.For this assignment, the focus is on issues of ethics, diversity, and globalization in relation to the content and technology industries. For each question, choose one online article from the November 7 module on Canvas. Make sure you provide enough detail and context to explain your answers. Please include a proper citation for each article.
1. Discuss one of the ETHICS articles. What is the controversy? What are the arguments on each side of the issue (for example, if the controversy is about content, what harm will occur if people see the content? What harm will occur if the content is censored?)? How would you handle the situation? (2-3 paragraphs).

2. Discuss one of the DIVERSITY articles. What is the issue? How is diversity being celebrated (or discouraged)? Do you think this issue is important? Why or why not? (2-3 paragraphs).

3. Discuss one of the GLOBALIZATION articles. What is the issue? Do you think every country should follow the same rules or should each country have autonomy to establish its own policies? Will one country’s policy have an impact on other countries? (2-3 paragraphs).