Chinese social media app RedNote, known in China as Xiaohongshu, gained nearly 3 million U.S. users in one day earlier this week as a flood of self-proclaimed “TikTok Refugees” joined, according to new data from analytics firm Similarweb.
The Chinese-language app had about 3.4 million daily active users across both iOS and Android devices in the United States as of Monday, up from fewer than 700,000 the day prior, and around 300,000 the week prior, according to the Similarweb estimate.
The influx of users has been driven by a looming U.S. ban on TikTok, used by 170 million Americans, on national security concerns.
The data suggests an even larger shift to RedNote by U.S. users this week than was previously known, explaining its dramatic rise to the top of U.S. app store download rankings. Reuters reported on Tuesday that more than 700,000 new users had joined the app in only two days.
Meanwhile, U.S. usage of TikTok declined ahead of the ban, down 2.1% week over week to about 82.2 million daily active users, Similarweb said.
US people once again realizing that they are not the center of the world
Isn’t that similar to how Americans and Russians were interested in knowing more about each other during Cold War?
Not for me but seems like a win overall? People are generally far less willing to hurt/fight people they know well compared to some nebulous concept of a nation. If American and Chinese people get to know eachother in a social setting it can only be a good thing.
It’s shockingly easy to agitate over there, being a leftist on the western internet and especially reddit is like training your arguing skills in a high-gravity environment. I’m accustomed to maneuvering around such unrelenting hostility that the friendliness of rednote is shocking to me.
It honestly sounds a lot like Hexbear. Made a rednote account today, but I’ve never used tiktok or instagram before, so the entire thing was kinda inscrutable for me lol, but I’m so glad that this is where the tiktok exodus is heading.
I think a big part of it is the community guidelines and moderation (of both places). I reported someone for being racist on RedNote and action was actually taken, unlike on a lot of western social media.
The consent machine is pulling triple shifts to convince people this is dangerous, and some people even on this site have so thoroughly doomer-pilled themselves that they can’t see the positives. I’ve been on there a lot this week and there is a real cultural exchange taking place, a lot of people asking questions about what it’s really like to live in each country. Just in my little slice I’ve seen dozens of comments from USians expressing that they are surprised to learn the reality of life in China and that they feel they have been deliberately mislead.
The consent machine is pulling triple shifts to convince people this is dangerous
seeing it nakedly displayed live on colbert, the daily show, and kimmel was mind blowing to me; are they panicking?
I’ll look around to see if I can find those show segments online, but as for ‘are they panicking?’, mass media has a vested interest in influencing public opinion (that’s effectively the only reason a private business bothers with news) and therefore control over public opinion. If the people who own the show and the channel give orders, the writers and actors probably won’t risk getting fired. (oh, and obligatory quick clip to demonstrate what ownership looks like, for those who haven’t seen it: “This Is Extremely Dangerous to Our Democracy”)
So, with that in mind, recall the reactions of almost all mass media to the UnitedHealthcare assassination: consistent critique and denouncement. Surely this wasn’t how all the news anchors felt, given how positive general opinion was! The people with ownership and executive power over these media channels obviously don’t want the idea of citizens shooting the dangerously rich and powerful to get popular, so we saw their ideas echoed in all the news.
Compare that to here: media channels outside of China don’t really want that counter-narrative to gain traction. It goes against their inherent interest of influencing public opinion, it’s a competitor which all the biggest media companies can agree to call bad news. So I have no doubt this unexpected and surprising turn would make them panic.
edit: the clips I found from Colbert and The Daily Show were a surprisingly mixed bag. For example, this Daily Show clip comes off more as a satirical jab at the US than any panic.
you’re preaching to the chior and the daily show was the closest to being subtle. colbert’s was the most stunning and it was last week.
DON’T 👏 INSTALL 👏 小红书 — It gave me third degree Havana syndrome, which my health insurance won’t cover.
If the CIA agents in Havana don’t get Cuban healthcare benefits, they should just quit.
Meirl
Everybody there is so nice
The saddest downvotes are the “shoot the messenger” downvotes. I find this fact inconvenient so ⬇
i need to figure out how to make the rick & morty “your boos mean nothing to me; i’ve seen what makes you cheer” meme more accessible somehow for this exact reason. lol
Removed by mod
Yes please everyone from the banned app move to an app that has a solid chance of being banned for the exact same reason. Unbelievably dumb but I guess we are talking about the tictok user base so I shouldn’t be surprised.
That’s the point? It’s people signalling they’re not dumb enough to believe the US’s “national security” shit and would trust China’s products over american ones like Meta or Xitter
It’d also be so fucking funny if the US forces people to use a VPN to access Xiaohongshu. How the turntables.
Soon we’ll be routing our internet connections like flight paths to get around sanctions.
This already happens.
Despite China history with the Uyghurs, child labor, and many other human rights violations and completely ignoring the fact that the people of China have a mile long list of apps they’re not allowed to download and a longer list of things they’re not allowed to speak about. These people sure know how to signal.
There’s more child labor, both legal and illegal, in the United States than in all of China.
That is factually not true and you should feel bad for making that sentence.
It is in fact true, despite what you’ve been propagandized to believe.
I just did the math, there were around 3,800 child labor violations in america last year. There were 12 million in china. It must be hard being a wolf warrior diplomat and always being this wrong. Why can’t you people chill out and leave the world alone?
Lmao. Sure there was. I’m sure you’re getting that data from a non biased source not aligned with American interests, right? There’s more than 3,800 child laborers in my state alone. In fact, they’re legally working much of the time. Many states have lowered the legal working age, and constant reports come out about children working in horrific conditions doing dangerous work such as slaughterhouses.
Got any data to support your claim?
That’s debatable but either way doesn’t make it right. It’s like everyone has decided they’ll join the #1 oppressor of free speech in order to protest their own loss of free speech? I don’t see how that makes any sense. If rednote becomes popular enough it will be covered by the same act that is allowing the ban of tictok. If people want to protest American companies then they should stop using them, and I mean completely. Nothing will speak louder than a missing user base.
Repression of hate speech is objectively a good thing. “Free speech” in our society is a dog whistle for allowing far right to spread conspiracy and lies without any repercussions. Western media heavily suppresses speech that cuts against their interests. Say “free luigi” on Facebook or instagram and see what happens. Say “free Palestine” on instagram and see what happens. Yet, literal fascists are allowed to (and even further spread by people like musk) to spread antisemitic conspiracies and objectively false and misleading pseudoscience without issue. Hundreds of left leaning journalists were banned on X in one day, for nothing more than being ideologically opposite to Elon Musk.
Put simply, the illusion of “freedom of speech” in the west is just that, an illusion. China does not suppress the majority of speech, they just don’t allow ideologues to sew conflict and falsehoods.
You are confusing free speech with private areas. You can absolutely go to the courthouse and scream “free luigi” All day long. You can’t do it in someone else’s business. Online spaces are someone else’s business. Go to China and scream " free tiawan" and see what happens.
Then let’s talk about the brutal assault and suppression of the pro Palestinian protests last summer. On public property, assaulted by agents of the state, hundreds arrested and charged with felonies for speaking their mind, threatened constantly by public officials, laws made to criminalize criticism of the client state of Israel. Or the hundreds of journalists, veterans, and protestors assaulted for daring to speak out against the current regime during press conferences and rallies. Just today, multiple journalists were assaulted during a press conference with Blinken.
Is any reporter going to actually look into this? I have serious doubts that a slew of English speaking TikTok users who can barely use their phones to begin with are going to mass migrate to a Chinese language app just to watch lame ass videos. This really feels like some sort of propaganda campaign.
you’re malding
unhinged conspiracy theory? check. condescending smugness? check. absolutely no effort to do any research before commenting? check.
well if it isn’t lemmy.world
Fake news! 😂 Such copium.
Trump promoting the best commie coffee
You can download the app and see for yourself ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
They literally can’t live without the lame ass videos though.
