With the U.S. ban on Chinese-owned Tik Tok thought to be imminent, users are starting to flee. The most popular replacement? A different Chinese video app, RedNote. The Verge's Emma Roth reports:
RedNote, the Chinese social media app also known as Xiaohongshu, rose to the number one spot on the Apple App Store as a US ban closes in on TikTok. The app offers a mix of pictures, short-form videos, and text posts across "follow," "explore," and "nearby" feeds.
A cursory scroll through RedNote's Explore page shows English-language posts scattered among those written in Chinese. Many American users call themselves "TikTok refugees" in videos, while others write in text posts that they're in search of a new community because of the potential TikTok ban. Some are even asking questions to Chinese users, such as "What are some popular memes in China?"
Young Americans fleeing directly to state-operated Chinese apps to avoid the shitlock of American social media would be the funniest possible result of the Tik Tok ban. And the name of this one is right on the nose. If it's too much to suggest that young people are making a rational decision here, we can't pretend to be surprised by comical outcomes when the choice they have is feeding their data to the Reds or to Mark Zuckerberg's newfound "masculine energy."