Jess Weatherbed is a news writer focused on creative industries, computing, and internet culture. Jess started her career at TechRadar, covering news and hardware reviews. TikTok is preparing to roll out a paid, ad-free version of its app in the UK. The new subscription announced today will be available to users over 18 “over the coming months,” according to TikTok’s announcement and will cost £3.99 (about $5.40) per month. In exchange for that, TikTok will remove ads from the user’s feed and promises to not use their data for undefined “advertising purposes.” This “pay or consent” model is likely in response to the UK’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other privacy laws that forbid companies from harvesting personal data for advertising without getting explicit consent from social media users. The ad-free subscription is opt in, meaning TikTok can argue that its users have a choice to avoid targeted ads.…