Chinese language social media app Xiaohongshu, known as RedNote in English, is attracting scores of People forward of TikTok’s potential shutdown within the U.S.
Andy Wong/AP
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Andy Wong/AP
With the clock ticking on a possible TikTok ban within the U.S., scores of People are flocking to a shocking various: a preferred Chinese language social media platform known as Xiaohongshu, or RedNote in English.
The Supreme Courtroom seems unlikely to dam a regulation that requires TikTok to both be divested from its China-based mother or father firm, ByteDance, or shut down within the U.S. on Jan. 19. The regulation stems from considerations in regards to the Chinese language authorities accessing People’ information.
That is received lots of the viral video app’s 170 million U.S.-based customers preemptively searching for some other place to go. And RedNote appears to be the platform of alternative.
The beginning of this week noticed a dramatic uptick in Google searches and social media posts about RedNote, in addition to its surge to the highest spot of the “free apps” chart on Apple’s app retailer. The market intelligence agency Sensor Tower advised NPR that its information signifies RedNote can also be the top-ranked social app on the Google Play retailer on Wednesday — a giant leap from #162, the place it stood this time final yr.
An individual near RedNote advised Reuters that greater than 700,000 new customers joined in simply two days. The New York Occasions reported that greater than 100,000 folks joined a stay group chat hosted by a consumer named TikTok Refugee Membership on Tuesday.
Many of those American newcomers are calling themselves TikTok refugees, a time period that is proliferating throughout the app in hashtags, remark sections and stay chats. And the app’s Chinese language customers seem like welcoming them with open arms, asking for cat photographs and assist with their English homework.
Whereas RedNote — like all social media apps in China — is topic to authorities censorship, many customers are cheering the chance for cross-cultural change, particularly given the tense relationship between the U.S. and Chinese language governments and the truth that main platforms like Google and Fb are blocked in China.
“For so long we really haven’t been able to connect or talk with each other like this, but now we finally can, and it feels so special,” one Chinese language consumer, who recognized himself as Abe, stated in a now-viral submit. “This is such a real chance for us to get to know each other and maybe create something amazing together … You are not just welcome here, I really, really hope you will stay.”
The life-style app is China’s tackle Instagram, favored by girls
The Chinese language equal of TikTok is the ByteDance-owned platform Douyin.
RedNote is a distinct app altogether. It is thought-about China’s reply to Instagram, with a structure much like Pinterest (displaying a number of posts on the identical time) and a give attention to journey, make-up, trend and buying.
Customers can submit quick movies, have interaction in stay chats, name one another and even buy merchandise throughout the app.
It launched in 2013, initially named “Hong Kong Shopping Guide,” and Reuters reviews that it aimed toward Chinese language vacationers searching for native suggestions.
Through the years it grew steadily and took on the title Xiaohongshu, which interprets to “Little Red Book.” That phrase historically refers to a assortment of quotations from Chinese language Communist chief Mao Zedong.
RedNote boomed amongst youthful customers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and is now valued at $17 billion. It at present boasts 300 million month-to-month lively customers, 79% of whom are girls, based on TechCrunch.
The app has caught on shortly amongst American audiences since final week, based on Sensor Tower.
It says U.S. cellular downloads of the app elevated greater than 20 occasions over the seven-day interval starting Jan. 8, in comparison with the earlier week, and are up greater than 30 occasions in comparison with the identical interval final yr.
Greater than a fifth of RedNote’s complete app downloads to this point this month have come from the U.S., the agency says, in comparison with simply 2% throughout the identical interval in 2024.
American customers navigate language limitations and censorship
RedNote’s new American customers are confronting the possibly taboo subjects of privateness and censorship head-on. Customers — from each nations — are joking about lastly assembly their “Chinese spies” and willingly handing over information (together with the aforementioned “cat tax“).
The New York Occasions reviews that in a bunch chat this week seen greater than 30,000 occasions, “participants discussed censorship and shared tips in the comments on how to avoid being banned from the platform for bringing up politically sensitive topics.”
“Welcome, but do not say anything about LGBTQ+. Thank you!” wrote a consumer in Beijing, in a single instance reported by Newsweek. The Advocate reported that some American customers have had their content material eliminated or accounts suspended, together with one girl who was banned for sporting a low-cut prime in a single video and mentioning “trans plight” in one other.
In 2022, the China Digital Occasions — a California-based nonprofit that covers censorship in China — printed a leaked trove of paperwork exhibiting how the content material moderation crew at RedNote bans or limits posts about delicate subjects.
These embrace some 546 derogatory nicknames for Chinese language chief Xi Jinping, in addition to dialogue of occasions akin to labor strikes, geographic discrimination, scholar suicides and criticism of the Chinese language Communist Occasion.
Plus, since a lot of the app’s content material is in Mandarin, subtitles are all of a sudden rampant — as are posts from People who wish to study the language, together with by exchanging translations of in style slang phrases with Chinese language commenters.
Duolingo, the language studying app, tweeted on Wednesday that it has seen a whopping 216% improve in Mandarin learners within the U.S. in comparison with this time final yr — including that folks “learning Mandarin out of spite” are “not alone.”
The irony that People are leaving TikTok for one more Chinese language-run app has not been misplaced on many customers, a few of whom see the transfer as an act of defiance towards U.S. lawmakers’ efforts to ban it.
“Did the U.S. government forget our founding principles? We are a nation built on spite,” consumer @thesleepydm posted on TikTok, the place they’ve over 200,000 followers. “We’re giving our information directly to the Chinese government now. The communists just have our information directly because of … what you did.”
