Days after the ban in India, Chinese video-sharing app TikTok is pulling away from Hong Kong and may lose another big market for the app after Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, said that the country is considering banning the app.
While TikTok has not been banned in Hong Kong yet, the ByteDance proprietary app cited 'recent events' to justify its decision to exit the market.
TikTok has been under fire in many countries, including India, the US, and Australia, for its relations to China and concerns over user data passed over to China's intelligence agencies.
The world's most valuable startup ByteDance runs some of the most popular social media platforms on both sides of the Pacific. TikTok is now the video destination of choice for more than 100 million predominantly young Americans, while its Douyin and Toutiao services are major entertainment for the same number of Chinese. TikTok said that its exit from Hong Kong could happen in a few days.
A spokesman for the service said: "In light of recent developments, we have decided to discontinue operating the TikTok application in Hong Kong."
TikTok is not the only social media company that has responded to the controversial National Security Act. Google, Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, and WhatsApp have announced that they will temporarily not process official requests from Hong Kong for user data.
In September last year, TikTok said that it had 150,000 users in Hong Kong. In the US, there were 37.2 million TikTok users in 2019, according to a report by The Verge.
Australian lawmakers want to question TikTok.
TikTok has come under investigation in Australia too, where it set up its office last month and has 1.6 million users. An anonymous Australian lawmaker has called for a ban on the app, while others want to question its management.
"There have been reliable reports that TikTok takes more data than its users expect, and moderates content that its users may not be comfortable with," said Senator Jenny McAllister through Social Media, chair of the Select Committee Foreign Interference.
He further added, "I think Australians would expect that TikTok and other platforms will appear before the Senate committee to answer questions."
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