‘TikTok refugees’ are flocking to China’s social media app RedNote. This is what we know about it
Chinese social media app RedNote, or Xiaohongshu, has skyrocketed to the top spot of Apple’s app store in the United States, as TikTok faces an imminent ban in the country. Owing to concerns over surveillance byy the Chinese government, ByteDance was ordered to sell the US wing of TikTok by the Biden Administration in April 2024. A final appeal was denied last month.
Many TikTok creators are rushing to find alternatives where they can continue to post videos as they await a potential ban of the platform on 19 January.
RedNote has attracted TikTok creators, who have posted videos on the social media app calling themselves ‘TikTok refugees’.
The Chinese platform based in Shanghai was launched in 2013 and has a similar layout to Meta’s Instagram and Pinterest. It has 300 million monthly active users and almost 80% are women, according to the site.
Users can select diverse topics of interest such as fashion, climbing, and books.
RedNote also has several social shopping features, in a challenge to China’s e-commerce site Alibaba.
RedNote has more than 2,000 employees and has raised over $900 million (€880 million) in total funding, according to CNBC, which cited PitchBook.
A TikTik content creator who goes by the username ‘allieusyaps,’ said in a post that while “it’s OK” that TikTok could be banned in the US, creators “aren’t going back to Instagram and Facebook,” because they joined RedNote.
“Look I might not have a job in the next week, but we about to learn Mandarin baby!” they said.
It is notable that some TikTok users have mentioned not going to TikTok’s biggest rival Meta, which hosts the platform Instagram.
Meta recently announced that its apps, which also include Facebook, Threads, and WhatsApp, would scale back their content moderation policies, which has raised concerns about misinformation and hate speech on its platforms.
Other social media platforms have also surged in the US, including Lemon8, a TikTok sister app with similar features.
Lemon8 was also developed by the Chinese company ByteDance, which owns TikTok, meaning that it too could be impacted by the US ban.
The US Supreme Court is expected to make a decision on 19 January on whether it will uphold the law. President-elect Donald Trump will take office a day later but it is unclear if he will decide to enforce the ban.
TikTok dismissed claims that X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk was its preferred bidder, should he make an offer for the US operation, calling reports “Pure Fiction”.
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