TikTok said it could leave Hong Kong in a few days.
TikTok from ByteDance Ltd. said it will remove its app from Hong Kong’s mobile stores in the next few days, becoming the first Internet service to retire from the city after Beijing enacted sweeping powers to combat threats to national security.
The announcement comes as the Chinese service itself is criticized in the United States for censoring content and controlling a large swath of data from American users. US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo told Fox News on Monday “we are certainly considering” a ban on Chinese social media applications, including TikTok.
ByteDance, the world‘s most valuable startup, operates 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 mostly younger Americans, while its Douyin and Toutiao services are major entertainment and news locations for a similar number of Chinese. TikTok said it could leave Hong Kong in a few days.
“In light of recent events, we have decided to stop the TikTok app’s operations in Hong Kong,” said a spokesperson for the service.
The departure of TikTok could augur an exodus of social media companies. Proclamation comes after Internet giants from Facebook Inc. to Google and Twitter Inc. have expressed opposition to national security legislation that gives the Hong Kong government broad powers to control the online and public spheres . US companies have said they will not process data requests from the city government, fearing that the new security law will criminalize the protests.
Sensor Tower data showed that in September 2019, TikTok had approximately 1.8 million downloads in a city of 7.4 million inhabitants.
TikTok has faced persistent allegations that its content decisions are aligned with Beijing’s priorities. He targeted videos related to the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, the ill-treatment of Muslims in the Chinese region of Xinjiang and the clashes on the Indo-Chinese border. Last year, a ByteDance spokesperson told Bloomberg TikTok that he had not deleted the videos of the Hong Kong protests for political reasons, saying that they would rather have been removed for violating guidelines for violent, graphic, shocking or sensational content.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
