ByteDance has a different version of TikTok (called Douyin) for the Chinese market, which complies with their censorship restrictions. My guess is they pulled TikTok out of HK to replace it with Douyin.

Not just Douyin, Tiktok also complies with their censorship restrictions https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23756148

Douyin is likely better designed for censorship, data collection and so on, particularly in the context of Chinese language - I'd say the parent comment is right, the goal here is to replace TikTok with Douyin.

Better: it's a way to pull it away from a money-losing market without spooking investors: "Oh it's not that we failed in a Chinese city, it's that new law you know"...

It's absolutely ridiculous a Chinese company would be the first to actually close down the service to protect users, don't you think ?

Lack of purpose: social media app that is allegedly heavily spying on its global users in favor of CCP would not be useful in a territory where Chinese government already forcefully requires anyone to disclose user data to them.

External and internal optics: anything available in Hong Kong yet unavailable in China is liable to make Hong Kong appear separate of China.

Collective mindset: Western UGC, even if censored to a degree, carries values and notions that threaten CCP’s power and influence over given territory. (I wouldn’t be surprised if TikTok’s Chinese sibling is going to be heavily promoted in Hong Kong, if it isn’t already.)

But then there's also Zero chance that the CCP is telling them to leave Hong Kong. TikTok imho is a spying and influence tool for the CCP anyway.

This move feels very very weird.

With the ban in India and threat of US ban, this move may be a PR move to say to the US Feds, "No, we're not a CCP tool. We've pulled out of the HK market to avoid data sharing with the CCP!" Essentially sacrificing the already low HK market to keep the much bigger Rest of the World market.

Of course, no one in tech believes them. We'll see if the public and governments believe them.

Does TikTok have much of a userbase in HongKong?

Maybe it is a strategy to deprive HongKong protesters of a platform to post content on?

Young children are obsessed about TikTok, even in Hong Kong, and parents are just too happy to let their kids melt in front of a mobile screen all day just to get some rest.

I’ve actually never really seen it taking off in HK, most people here are obsessed with Instagram and Facebook. Kids are mainly playing mobile games or watching Youtube.