3 injured after man with knife enters Montreal-area mosque
Three men were injured after trying to subdue a man armed with a knife during afternoon prayers at a Montreal-area mosque Friday afternoon.
The hugely popular Chinese app TikTok may be forced out of the U.S., where a measure to outlaw the video-sharing app has won congressional approval and is on its way to President Biden for his signature.
In India, the app was banned nearly four years ago. Here's what happened:
In June 2020, TikTok users in India bid goodbye to the app, which is operated by Chinese internet firm ByteDance. New Delhi had suddenly banned the popular app, alongside dozens other Chinese apps, following a military clash along the India-China border. Twenty Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed, and ties between the two Asian giants plunged to a new low.
The government cited privacy concerns and said that Chinese apps pose a threat to India's sovereignty and security.
The move mostly drew widespread support in India, where protesters had been calling for a boycott of Chinese goods since the deadly confrontation in the remote Karakoram mountain border region.
"There was a clamour leading up to this, and the popular narrative was how can we allow Chinese companies to do business in India when we're in the middle of a military standoff," said Nikhil Pahwa, a digital policy expert and founder of tech website MediaNama.
Just months before the ban, India had also restricted investment from Chinese companies, Pahwa added. "TikTok wasn't a one-off case. Today, India has banned over 500 Chinese apps to date."
At the time, India had about 200 million TikTok users. And the company also employed thousands of Indians.
TikTok users and content creators, however, needed a place to go -- and the ban provided a multi-billion dollar opportunity to snatch up a big market. Within months, Google rolled out YouTube Shorts and Instagram pushed out its Reels feature. Both mimicked the short-form video creation that TikTok had excelled at.
"And they ended up capturing most of the market that TikTok had vacated," said Pahwa.
In India, TikTok content was hyperlocal, which made it quite unique. It opened a window into the lives of small-town India, with videos coming from tier 2 and 3 cities that showed people doing tricks while laying down bricks, for example.
But for the most part, content creators and users in the four years since the ban have moved on to other platforms.
Winnie Sangma misses posting videos on TikTok and earning a bit of money. But after the ban, he migrated to Instagram and now has 15,000 followers. The process, for the most part, has been relatively painless.
"I have built up followers on Instagram too, and I am making money from it, but the experience isn't like how it used to be on TikTok," he said.
Rajib Dutta, a frequent scroller on TikTok, also switched to Instagram after the ban. "It wasn't really a big deal," he said.
The legislation to outlaw the app has won congressional approval and now awaits a signature from Biden.
The measure gives ByteDance, the app's parent company, nine months to sell it, and three more if a sale is underway. If this doesn't happen, TikTok will be banned. It would take at least a year before a ban goes into effect, but with likely court challenges, it could stretch longer.
In India, the ban in 2020 was swift. TikTok and other companies were given time to respond to questions on privacy and security, and by January 2021, it became a permanent ban.
But the situation in the U.S. is different, said Pahwa. "In India, TikTok decided not to go to court, but the U.S. is a bigger revenue market for them. Also, the First Amendment in America is fairly strong, so it's not going to be as easy for the U.S. to do this as it was for India," he said, in reference to free speech rights in the U.S. Constitution.
As Chinese apps proliferate across the world, Pahwa says countries need to assess their dependency on China and develop a way to reduce it as the apps can pose a national security risk.
The app is also banned in Pakistan, Nepal and Afghanistan and restricted in many countries in Europe.
"Chinese intelligence law and its cybersecurity law can allow Chinese apps to work in the interest of their own security. That creates a situation of distrust and it becomes a national security risk for others," said Pahwa.
"There should be different rules for democratic countries and for authoritarian regimes where companies can act as an extension of the state," he added.
Three men were injured after trying to subdue a man armed with a knife during afternoon prayers at a Montreal-area mosque Friday afternoon.
Police have arrested an 18-year-old woman who allegedly stole a Porsche and then ran over its owner in an incident that was captured on video.
Since she was a young girl growing up in Vancouver, Ginny Lam says her mom Yat Hei Law made it very clear she favoured her son William, because he was her male heir.
A 15-year-old boy who was the subject of an emergency alert in New Brunswick has been arrested.
U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris on Thursday issued a warning to any potential home intruder: 'If somebody breaks in my house, they're getting shot.'
What Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, 49, the Italian-Hungarian CEO and owner of Hungary-based BAC Consulting, says she hasn't done is make the exploding pagers that killed 12 people and wounded more than 2,000 in Lebanon this week.
Advocates have identified the woman who died this week after being shot by police in Surrey, B.C., as a South American refugee who was raising a young daughter.
The search for a missing six-year-old boy in Shamattawa is continuing Friday as RCMP hope recent tips can help lead to a happy conclusion.
Provincial police investigating the death of a cat that was allegedly set on fire in Orillia earlier this week released surveillance video of a person of interest in the case.
Getting a photograph of a rainbow? Common. Getting a photo of a lightning strike? Rare. Getting a photo of both at the same time? Extremely rare, but it happened to a Manitoba photographer this week.
An anonymous business owner paid off the mortgage for a New Brunswick not-for-profit.
They say a dog is a man’s best friend. In the case of Darren Cropper, from Bonfield, Ont., his three-year-old Siberian husky and golden retriever mix named Bear literally saved his life.
A growing group of brides and wedding photographers from across the province say they have been taken for tens of thousands of dollars by a Barrie, Ont. wedding photographer.
Paleontologists from the Royal B.C. Museum have uncovered "a trove of extraordinary fossils" high in the mountains of northern B.C., the museum announced Thursday.
The search for a missing ancient 28-year-old chocolate donkey ended with a tragic discovery Wednesday.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is celebrating an important milestone in the organization's history: 50 years since the first women joined the force.
It's been a whirlwind of joyful events for a northern Ontario couple who just welcomed a baby into their family and won the $70 million Lotto Max jackpot last month.
A Good Samaritan in New Brunswick has replaced a man's stolen bottle cart so he can continue to collect cans and bottles in his Moncton neighbourhood.