ByteDance, the Chinese tech company that owns TikTok, is trying to persuade central and state government officials to join the platform and use it to promote various government initiatives, Business Standard reports (paywall). Since the elections, Bytedance representatives have made frequent visits to various ministries and agencies "to get the hang of things", and to educate stakeholders about TikTok and other products to avoid situations such as the ban imposed on it in April. TikTok has also been aggressively hiring people who have worked at Google, Facebook, and Uber in India, especially in the policy space, and is seeking to allay the general mistrust Chinese companies face by collaborating with governments both at the national and state level, the report said. Following in the footsteps of Facebook, Google and Twitter The company is trying to work with the Centre on various initiatives around tourism and health, and on International Yoga Day, June 21, it ran a campaign to raise awareness around #YogaDay2019 on TikTok. Earlier this week, Kerala Tourism made its debut on TikTok as part of #TikTokTravel, the platform's global tourism campaign, the Business Standard report said. In doing so, Bytedance is taking a leaf out of Facebook's, Google's and Twitter's playbooks: In October 2018, Facebook launched a Digital Literacy Library in collaboration with the women and child development ministry. A collection of lessons in six Indian languages - Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam - it was announced at Facebook's South Asia Safety Summit and is meant to be a resource for educators looking to address…
