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TikTok Users Flocks To Chinese Social App Xiaohongshu (apnews.com) 44

Posted by BeauHD from the jumping-ship dept.
hackingbear shares a report from the Associated Press: As the threat of a TikTok ban looms, U.S. TikTok users are flocking to the Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu -- making it the top downloaded app in the U.S. Xiaohongshu, which in English means "Little Red Book" is a Chinese social media app that combines e-commerce, short video and posting functions, enticing mostly Chinese young women from mainland China and regions with with a Chinese diaspora such as Malaysia and Taiwan who use it as a de-facto search engine for product, travel and restaurant recommendations, as well as makeup and skincare tutorials. After the justices seemed inclined to let the law stand, masses of TikTok users began creating accounts on Xiaohongshu, including hashtags such as #tiktokrefugee or #tiktok to their posts. "

I like your makeup," a Xiaohongshu user from Beijing comments one of the posts by Alexis Garman, a 21-year-old TikTok user in Oklahoma with nearly 20,000 followers, and Garman thanks them in a reply. A user from the southwestern province of Sichuan commented "I am your Chinese spy please surrender your personal information or the photographs of your cat (or dog)." "TikTok possibly getting banned doesn't just take away an app, it takes away jobs, friends and community," Garman said. "Personally, the friends and bond I have with my followers will now be gone." Xiaohongshu doesn't even have an English user interface. Reuters reports: In only two days, more than 700,000 new users joined Xiaohongshu, a person close to the company told Reuters. Xiaohongshu [which was founded in 2013 and is backed by investors such as Alibaba, Tencent and Sequoia], did not immediately respond to a request for comment. U.S. downloads of RedNote were up more than 200% year-over-year this week, and 194% from the week prior, according to estimates from app data research firm Sensor Tower. The second most-popular free app on Apple's App Store list on Tuesday, Lemon8, another social media app owned by ByteDance, experienced a similar surge last month, with downloads jumping by 190% in December to about 3.4 million.

TikTok Users Flocks To Chinese Social App Xiaohongshu More | Reply

TikTok Users Flocks To Chinese Social App Xiaohongshu

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  • As much as I dislike TikTok et al (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fleeped ( 1945926 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @05:13AM (#65090105)
    It's refreshing to see enough people (carrying critical mass) refusing to just get forced to move to domestic state-approved social media, and just make their own decisions en-masse. As for the chinese app to chinese app migration, it's just hilarious.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Viol8 ( 599362 )

      Yes, they're really showing their distaste at authoritarian government and moving to bastion of freedom!

      Oh, wait....

      • I like that they at least took action. Sure, if this was an FDA ban, it's like banning fries, them moving to chips whereas the goverment would like them to eat hash browns.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Viol8 ( 599362 )

          You talk about it as if its freedom fighters retreating to a hold out. Its a bunch of addicted losers making crap videos (in portrait mode ffs) for other losers who don't give a damn about the chinese government slurping up all their data so long as they can get their hit of likes.

    • Re:As much as I dislike TikTok et al (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Malc ( 1751 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @05:43AM (#65090133)

      ... and nothing to do with TikTok users being manipulated so that they have a more positive view of the Chinese government than the general population. It also couldn't possibly be part of a strategy by said government by seeding these migration, oh no, they wouldn't be so manipulative.

      • You reap what you sow. Enabling these apps, and Meta being the only alternative because of friendly monopolistic practices. Maybe ban all social media under a certain age? Or maybe sanitize and REGULATE some social media instead and promote that to sensitive ages? Nah too hard, I know.
      • Also, Chinese government seems to be doing better in manipulation then compared to the USA government, for USA populace? That's no good outlook at all if that's the case.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        One must wonder why America is so bad at influencing its own people, it's literally getting owned by Communists.

        Most young people in America don't even believe in Democracy anymore

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by GlennC ( 96879 )

          Most young people in America don't even believe in Democracy anymore.

          If your only experience with "Democracy" was the last 30 or so years in the United States, would you believe we're a democracy?

      • ... and nothing to do with TikTok users being manipulated so that they have a more positive view of the Chinese government than the general population. It also couldn't possibly be part of a strategy by said government by seeding these migration, oh no, they wouldn't be so manipulative.

        And I'm sure this other chinese app won't have all the exact same things.

      • ... and nothing to do with TikTok users being manipulated so that they have a more positive view of the Chinese government than the general population.

        Well given the fact that the general population is constantly manipulated to have the view that derp derp China bad by their local government I want to hope that people are being manipulated by TikTok. They may actually end up the smarter and less biased portion of the total population.

    • It's refreshing to see enough people (carrying critical mass) refusing to just get forced to move to domestic state-approved social media, and just make their own decisions en-masse. As for the chinese app to chinese app migration, it's just hilarious.

      The alternative the masses are selecting, doesn’t even have support for the English language. Hilarious you assume 700K aren’t proverbial lemmings, or represents a “critical” mass. AOL still has more users today. Let’s see if the popularity grows beyond an article writer desperate for shit clicks.

      • AOL still has more users today

        First and second derivatives with respect to time are far more important than the current value, that's a very weak argument you're making.

        • AOL still has more users today

          First and second derivatives with respect to time are far more important than the current value, that's a very weak argument you're making.

          So is labeling 700K users “critical mass”. A CCP-sponsored botnet script could probably shit that statistical falsehood out in an hour. To create “critical” delusions of popularity. Why? Because it works. Every time.

          Just ask a Kardashian.

          • I guess we'll see! I don't watch shorts/video/whatever you call them, so I don't care either way, I'm just fascinated if the migration actually works. This migration seems possibly given the the BlueSky vs Twitter case so far. Also, hint-hint, the first big migration wave there happened when Twitter was banned in Brazil. The other waves because of various Musk policies.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Americans would rather learn a new language than bend over and take it from Meta LOL

  • Hehehe (Score:3)

    by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @05:27AM (#65090117)

    I have a little red book printed in China.

    It is full of wisdom and bright promises for the future.

  • ...did something and it's NEWS.

    Much like "content creators" and the sheer volume of garbage they're spamming global networks with - the people who care about this noise aren't worth paying attention to.

  • Useful idiots once more (Score:3)

    by Bruce66423 ( 1678196 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @06:13AM (#65090177)

    In the old days, useful idiots had to be taken round show sites in Stalin's autocracy before they would tell the world that the place was wonderful. Amazingly, such people exist to this day: a UK communist party member went to the home of the Uighurs and, having come back, trotted out the Chinese claims that it's a paradise there, there's freedom of religion and noone is being reeducated.

    By contrast the new generation of Western Chinese app users have zero knowledge of the horrors of Chinese rule of their colonial possessions such as Tibet and Xinjiang, they just know what they like. And, of course, American social media are banned from China; I've yet to discover why the US government isn't playing that card as a justification for blocking TikTok etc.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Or maybe they are comparing it to the actual reality of the horrors in Gaza and now realize US is full of shit.

    • By contrast the new generation of Western Chinese app users have zero knowledge of the horrors of Chinese rule

      [Citation Required]. The thing is simply using something from China, or not caring about the atrocities committed does not mean someone does know about it.

      I've yet to discover why the US government isn't playing that card as a justification for blocking TikTok etc.

      Probably because there's nothing to back this up, and because influencers on TikTok are not hosting anti-Tiananmen-Square reeducation challenges to get likes. It turns out people watch stupid videos and understand the difference between that and a history textbook.

      You may think TikTok is lame, but kids aren't substituting it for actual education.

  • Never heard of it. (Score:3)

    by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @06:22AM (#65090193)

    First it was Lemon8 last week. Now it’s whatever this is supppsed to be. Either way, 700K users hardly represents some massive shift. Or the future of child social media. Fucking AOL still has more users than that, Zoomer Boomers.

    But yeah, sell me again how it’s the future of your stock portfolio. Lies by any click necessary. And we wonder who no human will remember what it’s like to trust anyone or anything soon.

    • I wonder why you've never heard of it...

      Xiaohongshu doesn't even have an English user interface.

      Maybe it's not targeted at you...

      • On second thought, he sounds like the target audience...

        enticing mostly Chinese young women from mainland China and regions with with a Chinese diaspora such as Malaysia and Taiwan who use it as a de-facto search engine for product, travel and restaurant recommendations, as well as makeup and skincare tutorials.

      • I wonder why you've never heard of it...

        Xiaohongshu doesn't even have an English user interface.

        Maybe it's not targeted at you...

        Uh huh. Ban it from America and see which country bitches the loudest. Any why.

  • Honestly (Score:3)

    by sTERNKERN ( 1290626 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @06:47AM (#65090233)
    How stupid do You have to be to ban an APP and not the ways/methods it is frowned upon? Creating another one takes about 5 minutes or less and they have been chewing on the topic of banning the app for months/years.
  • What's a good reddit that's not reddit?

  • ... To their open discussion of COVID origins or Tiananmen Square.

    Or even Winnie the Pooh

  • The problem with the tiktok ban is its for tiktok, Can they just rename it to bingbong to get around the ban? The ban should be on Chinese apps that collect any data.

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