[metaphorical]

TikTok left Hong Kong because HK is a tiny market, and they wouldn't want the PR backblash if they had to share HK data with CCP.

There's evidence that Bytedance is not independent of CCP interferences though - such as the CEO's public statement in 2018 where he stated that Bytedance products should support "socialist core values" etc.

https://chinamediaproject.org/2018/04/11/tech-shame-in-the-n...

[bonzini]

Or maybe they left so that HK users must switch to the app for the Chinese-market, the one that definitely shares stuff with the CCP?...