TikTok says it can cease providing its social video app in Hong Kong after the area adopted a brand new nationwide safety regulation granting expanded powers to the mainland Chinese language authorities. “In mild of current occasions, we’ve determined to cease operations of the TikTok app in Hong Kong,” according to a spokesperson.

World tech corporations working in Hong Kong have expressed concern that the brand new regulation may power them to adjust to China’s draconian censorship requirements and probably ship consumer knowledge to the mainland. Google, Fb, and Twitter have already stopped processing requests for consumer knowledge from the Hong Kong authorities.

TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a serious Chinese language web firm. But it surely has been at pains to distinguish the Western app from its guardian and Douyin, the Chinese language model of the platform. Whereas TikTok has long argued that it by no means shares knowledge with the Chinese language authorities, the brand new Hong Kong regulation would probably have undermined the corporate’s case if it continued to function within the area.

TikTok continues to face scrutiny within the US and the past. Tonight, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo instructed Fox that the federal government is “actually ” banning TikTok and varied different Chinese social media apps. TikTok was additionally banned in India final week alongside dozens of different Chinese apps amid elevated tensions between the nations.