American and Chinese language social media customers are bonding on RedNote in an ironic twist that might backfire on the U.S. authorities and its plan to ban TikTok.
Within the days earlier than a proposed TikTok ban, People calling themselves “TikTok refugees” are flocking to RedNote, a Chinese language app with an identical format, and being welcomed with open arms.
Chinese language customers of the app are greeting People and explaining the best way to use it, whereas some People are studying to talk Mandarin to slot in.
“We Chinese language folks, we’re actually form and heartwarming,” RedNote consumer RoxyCat mentioned in a video welcoming TikTok refugees, earlier than cheekily warning customers to not ever “combine us up with Japanese or Korean.”
One other consumer cheerfully suggested TikTok refugees should pay a tax to make use of RedNote – by posting a photograph of a cat, a canine or a flower.
Others have been curiously asking questions of the brand new arrivals, like whether or not it is true that within the U.S. folks should work two jobs to outlive.
In a single video, a person expresses sympathy for People’ lack of common well being care.
“I can not even think about how anxious you guys are if you get sick. And that is not proper. You must should really feel secure and safe if you end up probably the most weak,” he mentioned.
The TikTok ban is predicted to take impact on Sunday, sparked by U.S. Congress elevating privateness considerations with Chinese language father or mother firm ByteDance and consumer information being shared with the Chinese language authorities.
However the cultural trade happening on RedNote has mockingly seen American customers expressing newfound sympathies with China.
Fashionable American YouTube chef Nick DiGiovanni, who speaks Mandarin, made a slick video introducing himself and his RedNote account to Chinese language customers.
“Proper now, I’ve a really giant viewers all around the globe aside from China,” he mentioned, asking for suggestions on what to prepare dinner and the place to go in China.
American “TikTok refugee” @caitlincoopers said in a TikTok video that probably the most thrilling factor about RedNote is American and Chinese language customers actually studying about one another. Marvelling at China’s well being care and schooling, she opines, “every part that we have been instructed about China is totally fallacious.”
On different social media platforms, folks began to notice a warming of attitudes towards China alongside the shift in apps.
“Simply downloaded the little pink e-book app,” one X user posted. “This app goes to undo a long time of U.S. propaganda. I am already jealous of their vehicles. That is what Joe Biden took from you!”
Shift seen as an act of defiance
Recognized by its Chinese language title Xiaohongshu in China, which interprets to “Little Purple Ebook” in English, RedNote is a well-liked way of life app with principally younger, feminine customers who doc their lives. It began as a procuring app and is extensively considered the go-to search engine in China for suggestions in magnificence, vogue, journey and meals.
Customers can have interaction in discussions, share their posts, name one another and buy merchandise.
Ivy Yang, a longtime RedNote consumer, China tech analyst and founding father of Wavelet Technique, instructed CBC Information she is seeing a whole lot of camaraderie and real curiosity within the interactions between American and Chinese language customers on the app.
“I discover it to be simply heartwarming, but additionally it is hilarious,” she mentioned.
However whereas most of the interactions are lighthearted, she says the shift for a lot of is an act of defiance towards the U.S. authorities.
“There’s form of this black satire, there’s form of this darkish humour in all of this,” Yang mentioned. “Once you inform me that the Chinese language authorities is taking my information and also you’re shutting it down due to the perceived threat of that … I am actually going to a quintessentially like Chinese language app, which does not even have English on it, to show my case that I believe that is fallacious.”
Yang says the app, like TikTok, is extra content-driven than creator-driven, which makes it extra seemingly for a single put up to go viral and convey somebody followers. She says one other similarity, and the driving drive behind the app’s recognition, is a way of group just like what customers describe feeling on TikTok.
A preferred Chinese language app is the No. 1 hottest social media app in Canada and the U.S. The CBC’s Ashley Fraser explains why content material creators are flocking to it as a possible TikTok ban looms within the U.S.
In solely two days this week, greater than 700,000 new customers joined Xiaohongshu, an individual near the corporate instructed Reuters.
U.S. downloads of RedNote have been up greater than 200 per cent year-over-year this week, and 194 per cent from the week prior, in response to estimates from app information analysis agency Sensor Tower. The app surged to the highest of the Apple and Android app shops.
Some customers have described it as a cross between Instagram and Pinterest, and others have mentioned it has components of YouTube, X and Google. As of 2023, it had greater than 300 million month-to-month energetic customers, in response to Chinese language media reviews.
RedNote additionally in peril of being banned, consultants say
Lemon8, one other social media app owned by ByteDance, skilled an identical surge final month, with downloads leaping by 190 per cent in December to about 3.4 million. It additionally shot to second place within the Apple retailer this week.
However Ritesh Kotak, a Toronto-based cybersecurity and know-how analyst, says it is virtually assured the U.S. will attempt to ban these apps, too, in the event that they grow to be in style sufficient.
“Individuals are on the lookout for some kind of safety. They wish to know that they are in a position to proceed to speak, that their group goes to observe them. And it appears that evidently that is an avenue that has been made out there,” he mentioned.
“If you are going to put all of your eggs in a single basket and migrate to a brand new app, simply perceive that there could also be an opportunity that you could be be pressured to pivot to a different app sooner or later.”
Throughout a information convention in Delta, B.C., Conservative Chief Pierre Poilievre says he beforehand ordered Conservative MPs, senators and employees to cease utilizing the TikTok social media app as a result of it dangers espionage, infiltration and manipulation by what he known as the hostile regime in Beijing. Poilievre added he didn’t have something to announce proper now about it.
Brett Caraway, a professor of media and economics on the College of Toronto, says this might flip right into a recreation of whack-a-mole, the place the federal government is chasing folks from platform to platform.
He additionally notes content material creators — a few of whom make their residing on TikTok — will bear prices shifting their companies to a brand new app, which may make the swap a dangerous endeavour when there is no assure it’ll stick round.
“The tip end result could be that you simply simply take a big consumer base and fragment them into many subdivisions and scatter them throughout any variety of platforms, not less than till a Canadian or U.S. agency offers a platform that gives the issues that customers need,” he mentioned.
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