TikTok India site opens, but ByteDance denies access return

On Friday, several users in India reported being able to access TikTok’s website after five years, sparking speculation about its return. The short video app, banned in 2020 along with AliExpress and other Chinese platforms, briefly showed an active homepage without requiring a VPN.

However, ByteDance clarified there are no plans to restore TikTok in India and confirmed compliance with government directives. Government sources also dismissed reports of unblocking as “false and misleading.”

TechCrunch later explained the sudden accessibility as a “network-level misconfiguration,” similar to past glitches where blocked websites briefly appeared online. By Saturday, the TikTok India site was once again inaccessible.