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RedNote May Wall Off 'TikTok Refugees' To Prevent US Influence On Chinese Users (arstechnica.com) 89

Posted by BeauHD from the fate-loves-irony dept.
Longtime Slashdot reader tlhIngan writes: In what is perhaps the greatest irony ever, the operators of RedNote (known as Xiaohongshu) have decided to "wall off" US TikTok refugees fleeing to its service as the TikTok ban looms. The reason? The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wants to prevent American influence from spreading to Chinese citizens. The ban is expected to be in place next week, while many believe that the influx of Americans to be temporary and just a reaction to the TikTok ban to move to another Chinese app. Many Chinese users are not happy with the influx as having "ruined" their ability to connect with "Chinese culture, Chinese values and Chinese news."
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RedNote May Wall Off 'TikTok Refugees' To Prevent US Influence On Chinese Users More

RedNote May Wall Off 'TikTok Refugees' To Prevent US Influence On Chinese Users

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  • pollution (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 17, 2025 @06:25PM (#65097793)

    US social media is a form of pollution.

    • Some truth there, but the reports of interactions have been quite positive, imo, with Americans learning that their media and government have been lying to them all these years, and things in China are a lot better than they've been lead to believe.
      From the other angle, it seems American life isn't as rosy as the Chinese have been lead to believe, notably medical costs.

      Imo, it'd be a shame for that to happen.
      However, it's not clear (to me) that it will. I've seen reports of a feature for Chinese users to bl

  • Opportunity of the decade (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    And China wants to waste it!

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by vlad30 ( 44644 )
      By walling them off it can send the different propaganda to each group without them mixing and sharing after all "The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wants to prevent American influence from spreading to Chinese citizens" just like the USA is wary of the CCP influencing Americans and is forcing TikTok out. With Zuckerberg admitting how his platform was used for censorship and defining the narrative by the government. for anyone who reads from a wide range of media (easy as translation services allows you to r

      • I contend that you have no idea what the CPC think or want. It is certainly not as binary as you suggest. I'm certain they recognise many good aspects of the USA and are wise to the crappy parts too.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      A world free of Americans.

      Don't threaten me with a good time!

    • When your focus is education, culture, and civilisation, having Americans flock to your platform is not an opportunity, it's a disaster.

      • I'd suggest it isn't as disastrous as you suggest...it's more like something that needs to be managed, and I'd guess they're going to try doing that....well, not the CPC themselves so much as the platform.

        • You must be American. You don't know how the rest of the world sees you.

          Your country is a farce and your people are a joke. Your leaders are bought and paid for and your society is in sharp decline.

          Also, collectively, you're an obnoxious bunch of fuckwits.

          No way will a platform that has spent time and money cultivating a positive environment allow you to endless September their work.

  • The abuse level is horrendous. Even something as mundane as immunisation gets drowned in nonsense, becomes this huge drama and hate filled campaign.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ffkom ( 3519199 )
      Not sure if that was an attempt on irony, but the drama that unfolded in China, with millions of people being locked in their buildings until some starved and some rioted, was certainly even bigger.

      • I think I'd have preferred that to over a million dead Americans.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Nonsense.

        A small number of people had to be confined because they refused to stay home after testing positive for COVID. We do the same thing with people who are infectious, or who have severe mental health problems.

        The rest is made up. When areas entered lockdown, the local government was responsible for making sure people got deliveries of stuff they needed, and for organising things like access to shops.

        There was no need for riots, when protests started the government quickly listened and ended lockdowns

        • Wow you're so deep in the propaganda you can't even tell anymore.

          Democracies don't (can't) literally fence and board-up aparment complexes because some people in there need to be quarantined. That is bat-shit insane and indeed DPRK-level authoritarian bullshit. It is also well-documented that that happened across several regions in China, with pictures all over reliable media outlets (like the BBC) for anyone who cares to be informed.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            In the UK, a democracy, the law allows for people to be locked up for medical reasons, including being infectious.

            This is why we are losing to Chiba. It's all just mindless bullshit propaganda, total denial that anyone who doesn't follow our ideal (not our reality) could succeed. Fragile nationalism, you could call it.

            We are screwed.

          • Of course a democracy can do that!
            What the funk has emergency response to do with democracy?

            The voting is next election, and not right now when the house is on fire.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        You've certainly made the GPs point.

      • That was a local mismanagement issue and stopped by the central government, at least partly due to complaints, which is quite contrary to the western narrative that Chinese people can't/don't complain, or that complaints are futile, or worse.

  • Got to keep those barbarians out.
  • ... you can't stop The Stupid.
  • If the owner of a social media network was concerned about an influx of foreign nationals to its network making it less attractive for already present locals, it would be trivial to setup separate server instances where accounts from certain nations would be moved to, while algorithms would make certain to not expose postings from one instance to the other (unless people want to chat one to one).
    • What would justify the expense of running the instance for Americans though? I doubt it would be workable to sell ad impressions to American companies in that context.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ffkom ( 3519199 )
        If TikTok had a business model for financing servers for US users, why wouldn't a competitor? And since people are suspecting this is all state sponsored efforts from China to poison US minds, anyway, the money for the servers would certainly be peanuts in the military budget.

      • Google ads (?) operates in China, as do Facebook and probably others too. Iirc, one big ad network recently withdrew from China, but I'd imagine there's an opportunity there...if the migration isn't short-lived (which it probably is).

    • That's... what the post said. What's implausible about it and how does it differ from what you said?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ffkom ( 3519199 )
        One of the section headlines in the linked article reads "Many US RedNote users quickly banned" - I may have over-interpreted this assuming RedNote plans on generally kicking US users from their platform, but maybe they indeed only want to run separate servers, after all.

  • red china wants to wall off the usa! (Score:4)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Friday January 17, 2025 @07:02PM (#65097855)

    red china wants to wall off the usa!

    • Gotta contain the stupidity before it spreads.

      • Re:red china wants to wall off the usa! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Friday January 17, 2025 @10:16PM (#65098151)

        >"Gotta contain the stupidity before it spreads."

        More like gotta contain their narratives and locked-down speech.

        The last thing the CCP wants presented to their citizens are posts that contain individual thoughts, postings that mention democracy, free speech, criticism of government, or anything that might contradict the CCP's control.

        • "more likely" you have no idea what you're talking about...literally. ..and by literally, I mean the literal meaning, not the opposite of literally which is the meaning people in the USA seem to frequently use, rendering the word next to useless. So, I find myself asking why I bothered using it in the first place. Silly me.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The irony is that TFA's author didn't realize that TikTok was created to divide Western and Chinese users in the first place. In China they have an app that is basically the same as TikTok but only available to Chinese users.

      It's not even a commie conspiracy, it's just that American propaganda is so bad now that it would be all out war if the two groups were on the same platform.

      • Chinese propaganda is just as bad, and its people just as.... 5-minutes-of-hatey.
        So ya, I 100% agree with your ultimate assessment that it'd be all-out war in about 5 minutes.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          And how do you know that? Do you speak Chinese? Are you regularly checking Chinese social media and news? Or did someone tell it that and it seemed plausible, because how could they not be at least as bad as us?

          • And how do you know that?

            Because I've witnessed it, lol. For years.

            Do you speak Chinese?

            Not well, but enough.

            Are you regularly checking Chinese social media and news?

            Yes.

            Or did someone tell it that and it seemed plausible, because how could they not be at least as bad as us?

            Your fucked up attempt at apologism is bizarre dude. You should seek help.
            Read the comments section of any online Chinese publication. Those fuckers are every bit as toxic as your average Fox News commenter.

      • Meh. The case in point, ie Red Note, shows the opposite. People on both sides are more enlightened...USians learn that it is a lot better in China than they've been told by their lying media and gov, and the Chinese learn that things in the USA are a lot worse than all the stuff coming out of Hollywood suggests.
        It's quite interesting to watch.

        • and the Chinese learn that things in the USA are a lot worse than all the stuff coming out of Hollywood suggests.

          If you don't think the Chinese propagandize their own people, I've got a fucking bridge to sell you.
          The shit those poor folks are spoonfed is every bit as fucking dumb as the shit you see the talking heads on Fox News delivering.

          Chinese ethnocentrism is every bit as vile as ours.
          If I ever meet a Chinese person that doesn't think the US is a third world country with a third world military that China doesn't crush out of goodwill, I'll shake their dick.

  • Fact check: False (Score:3)

    by oumuamua ( 6173784 ) on Friday January 17, 2025 @07:57PM (#65097987)
    They are welcoming the TikTok refugees with open arms (as long as they post a cat video). Straight from the newspaper recognized by many people as the 'mouthpiece of the CCP' so it must be ground truth:

    Those friendly people-to-people exchanges between China and the US reflect the desire from each side to learn more about the other, analysts said, while urgingUS politicians to register for the app and see it themselves. But some US politicians just cannot tolerate the growing warmth in people-to-people exchanges, nor do they want citizens from both sides to understand each other's realities. They're afraid that if such interactions cannot be suppressed, and US netizens discover that China's actual situation differs from the narrative these politicians promote, which coupled with the friendliness of Chinese netizens, could make it harder for these politicians to continue smearing China, Li Yong, a senior research fellow at the China Association of International Trade, told the Global Times on Friday.

    https://www.globaltimes.cn/pag... [globaltimes.cn]

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 )

      The truth is actually somewhere in the middle. China is not quite as bad as American propaganda makes it out to be, and America isn't quite as good as American propaganda makes it out to be. Our democracy is kind of backsliding, our for-profit healthcare system is an outlier within the realm of developed nations, and we're not doing so well on the metrics of wealth inequality, gun violence, and home ownership (we're something like 54th globally among developed nations).

      We still do have the right to bitch

      • As far as I see, the only place that America excels is by creating some of the wealthiest people in the world. If you are an American and not wealthy you should be proud of what you produced. If you are not proud of that, then you really need to change your fucking country.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Entrope ( 68843 )

          Most Americans would be rich in another country. Any other big country has a PPP-adjusted median family income about the level of Mississippi, and most other big developed countries have less. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          The US leads scientific research and development around the world. https://uk.rs-online.com/web/c... [rs-online.com] and https://www.insidermonkey.com/... [insidermonkey.com]

          The US has also provided military security for half the world for decades. We turned the tide of WW2 and won the Cold War.

          Yes, the US is good at

          • I wouldn't say you make average Americans wealthy. You make wealthy Americans wealthier. I have yet to see one wealthy person in the news that was once average. Yes I know Elon once lived on Kraft dinner to survive, but that was his choice as he always had his family to fall back on if he found himself on the street and dying.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Entrope ( 68843 )

              People care about facts and supportable evidence, not what some neckbeard on the Internet would say.

              Maybe you should read about Jeff Bezos: born to a couple of teens who divorced when he was a toddler, adopted by a Cuban immigrant. Mark Zuckerberg's parents are a psychologist and a dentist. Larry Ellison was born to a single mother and adopted by her middle-class aunt and uncle. Sergey Brin immigrated to the US as a child; his parents are a retired professor and a NASA employee. Larry Page was born in t

              • Mark Zuckerberg still went to Harvard. Bezos as well? Zuxkerberg went to a private college for crying out loud, that isn't 'average' to me. The average kid defintitely attends public school. I don't know about the rest of the people.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by Entrope ( 68843 )

                  You're just making the trite observation that at some point the started to distinguish themselves. Most of them went to public schools. Huang didn't -- his relatives unwittingly sent him to a boarding school for troubled youth, where he was bullied.

                  • Did they go there on a scholarship or could their parents afford it? If their parents could afford it than they weren't average, because the average parent can't afford it.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by Entrope ( 68843 )

                      You're the one making an argument about their supposed privilege. It's your burden to back up that argument, not mine. I'm just pointing out that they look a lot more ordinary than you claimed.

                      How much benefit does somebody get from a school that they drop out of after a year, anyway? Is their fabulous wealth assured if the alternative to (dropping out of) university was to manage a fast-food franchise? If so, why is Warren Buffett the only top-ten billionaire in the US with a relatively prominent paren

                    • They still make powerful connections in that year.

  • They warned me Americans would soon be learning Chinese; but I didn't realize it would be to learn a user interface so China can protect their free speech* from America.

    *aka cat videos

  • Why is TikTok considered a national threat but Red Flag isn't? If TikTok is banned, should not also every other similar Chinese app be banned as well?

    • Why is TikTok considered a national threat but Red Flag isn't? If TikTok is banned, should not also every other similar Chinese app be banned as well?

      If it becomes enough of a threat to Zuckerberg - ah...I mean democracy - they will.

    • Red flag? That's a brand of Chinese luxury car. They used to look mind of dated, but they hired a designer from (iirc) Rolls Royce, and you can tell from the new designs - they look a lot better to a westerner's eye anyway.

  • In Chinese it means "Little Red Book".

    So, these TikTok idiots are basically transferring to an app named after the Chinese Mein Kampf.

  • Good luck mentioning Tiananmen Square...

    https://networkcontagion.us/wp... [networkcontagion.us]

  • This website is 100% Chinese. There is no English version. The front page is filled with Chinese user videos. No Americans. I see zero chance of communist radicalization if the website cannot even provide a decent English interface.

    • The problem is, they start sending you verrrrry rosy Chinese video recommendations...that gloss over all the less flattering issues with China. The fact that they're already talking about partitioning off Americans from Chinese on the app...shows the extent to which they want to control what their own citizens see and hear.

  • As of 10:30 PM EST, the tiktok servers in the US have been taken down.

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