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

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."

pollution

[Anonymous Coward]

US social media is a form of pollution.

Re:

[vlad30]

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'd do that too

[evanh]

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

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[ffkom]

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.

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[TheMiddleRoad]

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

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

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

Re:

[ceoyoyo]

You've certainly made the GPs point.

Wrong side of the Great Firewall

[jfdavis668]

Got to keep those barbarians out.

Try as they might...

[AmazingRuss]

... you can't stop The Stupid.

This story sounds implausible

[ffkom]

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).

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[timeOday]

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.

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[ffkom]

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.

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[viperidaenz]

The entire purpose of Tiktok was to be marketed to those outside of China. Bytedance has a separate version for inside of China.

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[DamnOregonian]

Because they're not competitors...

Re: This story sounds implausible

[nategasser]

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

red china wants to wall off the usa!

[Joe_Dragon]

red china wants to wall off the usa!

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

Gotta contain the stupidity before it spreads.

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[markdavis]

>"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.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

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.

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[DamnOregonian]

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.

Fact check: False

[oumuamua]

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 exch

Re:Fact check: False

[Powercntrl]

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 about our country being the miserable underachiever that it is, so there's at least that. But China isn't really a necessary part of providing a free speech platform for Americans to wake up and realize we've collectively been sold a false bill of goods. Reddit seems to have that covered pretty well.

They told me Americans would be learning Chinese

[penguinoid]

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