NEW YORK • Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok announced yesterday that it would pull out of Hong Kong within days, as global tech giants struggle to figure out how to operate in the city under sweeping new security rules imposed by Beijing.

Major US Internet companies - including Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Twitter and Zoom - have all announced that they suspended the processing of requests for user data from the Hong Kong authorities while they study the new law.

Yesterday's announcement by TikTok of its plan to quit Hong Kong is notable because the short-form video app is owned by a Chinese company but operates only outside of mainland China.

Its parent company, ByteDance, runs a separate, similar service inside China, while saying TikTok is intended to appeal to users worldwide. Its exit means Hong Kong users, like those in mainland China, will now be cut off from the global version.

The company has said before that the app's user data is not stored in China.

TikTok also said previously that it would not comply with any requests made by the Chinese government to censor content or for access to TikTok's user data, nor has it ever been asked to do so.

The Hong Kong region is a small, loss-making market for the company, one source familiar with the matter said.

Globally, TikTok was downloaded more than two billion times through the Apple and Google app stores after the first quarter this year, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower.

The source said the move was made because it was not clear if Hong Kong would now fall entirely under Beijing's jurisdiction in the light of the new law.

TikTok was designed so it could not be accessed by the Chinese mainland. Its equivalent on the mainland is called Douyin.

There are no plans to introduce Douyin to the Hong Kong market, a ByteDance spokesman said.

Although Douyin is not available on overseas app stores, it has gathered more users than TikTok in Hong Kong, according to a second source familiar with the situation.

"Douyin has lots of users in Hong Kong and will continue to serve the users there," ByteDance China chief executive Zhang Nan said in a statement.

Dr Fang Kecheng, an assistant professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, said TikTok's move highlighted the dilemma faced by Chinese companies trying to internationalise, adding that it was "inevitable".

"You have to follow local policies and try not to offend the Chinese government and the public. ByteDance's separation of TikTok (from Douyin) was the same strategy," Dr Fang said.

REUTERS