The popular social media app, TikTok, is pulling its service out of Hong Kong. The news arrives after the region adopted new national security laws that grow the Mainland Chinese government’s powers.
According to a spokesperson, “In light of recent events, we’ve decided to stop operations of the TikTok app in Hong Kong.” For those unaware, Hong Kong has recently adopted China’s Draconian regulations which have often been criticized for its censorship standards. Thus, global tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Twitter have already stopped processing requests for users’ data from the local government.
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TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is a Chinese firm that has been struggling to differentiate its extremely successful western application from its parent company and Douyin (the Chinese version of the social video app). It has faced various criticism regarding its handling of information, and we had even reported on a claim of its harvesting user data.
TikTok has always denied sharing any of its information with the Chinese government. Although now, the new security laws in Hong Kong might undermine this position as it would require companies to hand over various forms of data to the government. Notably, the US is considering a ban on TikTok and other Chinese applications, with India already banning the social media platform along with 58 other apps from China.
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