Chinese mobile applications, including the famous game Garena Free Fire, have been recommended for restriction by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Surprisingly, the developer of Garena Free Fire is from Singapore, not China. After PUBG Mobile was banned in September 2020, the game became one of the most downloaded games in India last year, filling the void left by the ban. As reported by indianexpress.com on Sunday, the software has already been withdrawn from the Google Play Store and the App Store in India.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), according to PTI, would issue a formal notification prohibiting the use of these apps in India. free fire and other famous short video apps were also prohibited in China in 2020 by the government. The list includes roughly 59 apps in total when TikTok was banned on June 29, 2020. Share it, Shein (a fashion website and app), Xiaomi Mi Community, Clash of Kings, Weibo, Likee, and other popular apps were also included on the list.
The government has the “Power to provide orders for interception, monitoring, or decryption of any information through any computer resource,” according to Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. This is usually when the government is “satisfied that it is necessary or expedient to do in the interest of India’s sovereignty or integrity, defence, security, friendly relations with foreign States, or public order, or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence relating to the above, or for investigation of any offence.”
Krafton recently sued Garena Free Fire. You read that correctly. The game has been accused of ripping from PUBG Mobile. The company also sued Google and Apple for allowing the game to be distributed through their respective app stores. Various parts of the game, including structure and an airdrop feature, were intentionally copied, according to Krafton’s claim.