According to the Wall Street Journal the regulations were unveiled on Friday and prevent "technology based on data analysis for personalised information recommendation services" -- which would likely apply to TikTok's AI content-recommendation engine -- from being exported without a license.

The Chinese state-owned Xinhua News Agency published commentary from a trade professor and government adviser suggesting that ByteDance "seriously and cautiously" consider whether to suspend TikTok negotiations after reviewing the new rules.

The state-owned English-language newspaper Global Times published a similar story quoting Chinese experts as saying the restrictions could help ByteDance "prevent its core algorithms used in video-sharing app TikTok from falling into US companies' hands."