Victoria, July 7: Short-video sharing platform TikTok on Monday night said that it would pull its application from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store in Hong Kong after the city's government passed a restrictive law last week. Speaking to media, the Bytedance owned app said, "In light of recent events, we've decided to stop operations of the TikTok app in Hong Kong." China's National Security Law in Hong Kong: What Has Changed And Why The Legislation Has Led to More Protests?

The new law force the companies doing business in Hong Kong to share user data with the Chinese government as well as to follow censorship requests. TikTok had earlier said that its user data is not stored in China. TikTok App Banned by Indian Government, Chinese Company ByteDance Stand to Lose More Than Rs 3 Crore Everyday in Revenues.

TikTok said that it had 1,50,000 uses in Hong Kong until last September. The number would have gradually increased, however, it remains small and loss-making market, according to the company.

TikTok has been downloaded over 2 billion times globally. The application was not designed to be accessed by mainland China as a part of a strategy to attract more global audience. ByteDance operates a TikTok-like app called Douyin in China. However, the company has shown no interest in expanding it to Hong Kong

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 07, 2020 09:45 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).