TikTok plans to withdraw from Hong Kong, may face US ban

TikTok said late Monday that it is planned to exit the Hong Kong market within a few days, as several technology giants have announced Interrupt the review of Hong Kong government requests for user data in response to a new national security law that China has imposed on the region that has slowed political expression. The Trump administration announced on Monday that the future in the US could also be questioned.

“Given recent events, we have decided to stop operating the TikTok app in Hong Kong,” a spokesman for the Chinese video sharing app in Singapore told CNET, confirming a previous Reuters report.

The law, which came into force last week, criminalizes “secession, subversion, organization and implementation of terrorist activities and collusion with a foreign country”. The terrorist attacks include arson and damage to public transportation. Those found guilty under the law could face life imprisonment.

Silicon Valley companies receive regular requests for user information from governments around the world, including Hong Kong, as part of a criminal investigation. Facebook, Twitter and Google are among the companies that have announced that they will cease operating in the region if they take a closer look at the law.

The law has also prompted activists and writers to delete their social media accounts if, according to the New York Times, the government is considering what they publish subversively.

TikTok is a social media app in which users, mostly teenagers and young adults, publish videos up to 15 seconds long that are often synced with music. The app belongs to the Chinese company ByteDance, currently the most valuable startup in the world.

The app is growing in popularity in the first quarter of the year and has more than 2 billion downloads from the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, the analysis company Sensor Tower reported in April.

However, the app has been examined more closely in recent months. U.S. lawmakers have blamed the app for national security threats, and the U.S. Army and Navy have banned the app from government devices.

In an interview with Fox News on Monday evening, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Trump administration is aware of TikToks and is considering banning the app.

“We’ll definitely look into it,” Pompeo replied to an interviewer. “We have been working on this issue for a long time,” referring to the government’s bans on the highly competitive Chinese telecommunications equipment supplier Huawei.

The app has recently become a vehicle for political activism. After President Donald Trump’s official Twitter account invited supporters to request tickets for a rally in Oklahoma on June 11, K-Pop fan accounts encouraged their followers to do so Register for the event and then do not participate. TikTok videos with millions of views encouraged viewers to do the same.

CNET’s Sareena Dayaram contributed to this report.