TikTok to pull out from Hong Kong

Popular video-sharing app TikTok will pull out from the Hong Kong market within days, reports Reuters citing a company spokesperson.

This decision to exit Hong Kong comes after the Chinese government passed its controversial security law in the semi-autonomous city in a bid to exert more control over its Internet, impose censorship, and force companies operating in the region to hand over user data.

TikTok is owned by China-based ByteDance, but the company says its user data isn't stored in China - something they told the Indian government recently following a ban along with 58 other apps in the South Asian country.

TikTok has said it hasn't shared any user data with governments before and wouldn't comply with such requests. But despite that, it remains to be seen if the video-sharing app can evade bans from other countries or meets the same fate it did in India and loose billions of dollars as a result.

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