With TikTok Ban Approaching, Users Flee to China App ‘Red Note’

“Hi everyone, my name is Ryan. I’m a refugee from TikTok. The American government is banning TikTok so we’re looking for another way… I’m so sorry to disturb you here. We hope we don’t have to stay here anymore. Long,” user Xiaohongshu who uses the name Ryan Martin said in a video has been sent yesterday it seems to be talking to Chinese users. He translated the words into Chinese and used a robot voice machine to read them in the video, which has been liked more than 24,000 times. “It’s okay, you’re not interrupting him. When you guys are active, we sleep,” said one of the top comments in Chinese.

There are also many interactive forums on the platform where American and Chinese users explain to each other, perhaps for the first time in many cases, how their teams work and highlight common misunderstandings. One of the most popular chats has been heard by almost 30,000 users.

Although Xiaohongshu is not specifically mentioned in the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act that the Supreme Court is currently considering and could lead to the US ban on TikTok, the law states that “something controlled by a foreign adversary” may face the same. in the future. In other words, there is no guarantee that Xiaohongshu will not follow in TikTok’s footsteps by being banned by the US government.

TikTok’s ban may have put Xiaohongshu in the spotlight in the US, but the app has long been a hit in China. Founded in 2013, the Shanghai-based company has done one of the best, if not the most and many, modern platforms in China over the past few years and said to him over $1 billion in annual profits in 2024. In short, it is the hottest program in China that non-Chinese people have never heard of.

It also has a large following among Chinese speakers outside the country, from overseas Chinese students to Taiwanese to Malaysian communities. Restaurants, tourist attractions, and travel companies all around the world they are beginning to recognize the program due to the increasing number of Chinese tourists who rely heavily on it for local information and the views shared by the Chinese people.

The app is very different from TikTok in several key ways. Although Xiaohongshu allows users to post short, vertical videos like TikTok, most of the content on the platform is still images combined with text, which is why people often see it as a competitor to Instagram rather than TikTok. The grid-type AI feed (referred to as “grid architecture” in tech circles) has been so successful in running content that major media companies such as Tencent and ByteDance have adopted its design for their products. Lemon8, another popular TV app created by ByteDance alongside TikTok, is many see it as an attempt to emulate Xiaohongshu and its success.