STORY: Chinese app Xiaohongshu – or RedNote in the West – saw a spike of new users from the U.S., just days before a proposed ban on social media TikTok.
In fact – it topped free download rankings on Apple’s U.S. App Store this week.
A live chat called “TikTok refugees” had more than 50,000 American and Chinese users joining the room on Monday, and impromptu cultural exchanges were seen across the app between veteran Chinese users and American newcomers, including Americans asking Chinese for help with math homework, and the other asking for help with English.
One ‘refugee’ user named Crystal, who declined to give her last name, posted this introduction:
“I just want to thank you for welcoming us to this app. If we do anything wrong, just let us know because we’re used to making videos where we dance and do stupid stuff.”
“Just let us know and hopefully within two weeks we’re bilingual. I mean, that’s my goal in life. It would help us everywhere.”
TikTok has a U.S. user base of 170 million Americans, about half the population, and is owned by Chinese company ByteDance.
The Justice Department has said TikTok poses a threat to national security because of a risk that China could use data on Americans for espionage, blackmail, or manipulate what gets shown to users.
Content creator Gwenna Laithland, who has also made a move to RedNote, says she’s treating it like a silent protest against the TikTok ban.
“We, as an American public, feel so very silenced and ignored that this right here is our opportunity to really just shove a middle finger up in the air and go, ‘No! No, we don’t like this! You didn’t listen to us!’”
“But so far we have begged our representatives, please show us what this security issue is and why ByteDance is more guilty than everybody else. If Chinese-owned and run and accessed apps are a problem, why was RedNote even on? It’s an even more Chinese app than the Chinese app we’re all worried about right now.”
“The newness will wear off once we’re all sort of bored holding up that middle finger to the government. We’ll wander off, but for now, I’m just sort of hanging out, consuming.”
Two sources told Reuters the sudden influx has taken RedNote by surprise.
A person close to the company told Reuters more than 700,000 new users joined in just two days.
Xiaohongshu is something like a Chinese answer to Instagram, geared more toward domestic Chinese users with little content in English.
The sources say the company is now scrambling to find ways to moderate English-language content and build English-Chinese translation tools.
The company wants to mine the sudden rush of attention, as executives see it as a potential path to achieve global popularity similar to TikTok’s.
Share prices of some China-listed companies that conduct business with Xiaohongshu surged past their daily limit Tuesday.
It all comes as the deadline approaches for ByteDance to sell U.S. assets of TikTok before January 19th, or face a ban.
