The woes for short video platform TikTok doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon. TikTok announced that it will stop offering its service in Hong Kong. This is because the region has now adopted a new national security law granting powers to the mainland Chinese government in the region.
Speaking to Axios, a spokesperson said, “In light of recent events, we’ve decided to stop operations of the TikTok app in Hong Kong”.
It’s not just TikTok, other global tech companies operating in Hong Kong have expressed concern over the restrictive law. The law could force them to comply with China’s censorship standards and even send user data to the government.
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Google, Facebook, and Twitter already have stopped processing requests for user data from Hong Kong’s government.
In other parts of the world, TikTok faces continuous scrutiny, especially in the US. US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo said that the government was “certainly looking at” banning TikTok and other Chinese social media apps. This follows TikTok’s ban in India recently along with more than two dozen other Chines app amid the tension between the two countries.
Its parent company, ByteDance has repeatedly said that TikTok does not share data with the Chinese government. The company maintains that the app is different from a similar app, Douyin, that it operates only within mainland China.
TikTok in September 2020 recorded having over 150,000 users in Hong Kong. However, the number is likely to have increased given the global pandemic.
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