Millions of self-styled “TikTok refugees” from the US continue to sign up for China’s Xiaohongshu social media app – even as access to TikTok has been restored for American users.
TikTok, a short video platform developed by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, went briefly dark for its 170 million users in the US on Saturday, after the Supreme Court upheld a Biden administration ban on the app, citing national security concerns. But while it remained unavailable for download, TikTok came back in fits and starts on Sunday afternoon, with the company crediting “President Trump’s efforts.”
America’s new president has taken to his social media platform, Truth Social, promising to sign an executive order on his first day that would grant TikTok a reprieve while options are explored to keep the app – an economic and promotional lifeline for millions of content creators – in the US.
In the meantime, many Americans – and other global users – have been flocking to rival app Xiaohongshu, both as a protest against Washington’s stance on TikTok, and out of sheer curiosity. Xiaohongshu, known as RedNote in English, is a product of the Shanghai based Xingyin Information Technology and garnered nearly 3 million new US users in a single day, according to analytics firm Similarweb. Its explosive popularity has pushed the app to the top of the charts of the Google Play and Apple app stores.
The result? Cultural exchange between Chinese and American users on a massive scale. Perhaps at no other time in history have two populations been able to talk to each other so directly and so immediately, without interference from governments or filtering by the media.
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Ivy Yang, a China tech analyst and founder of consulting firm Wavelet Strategy, told CNN that although the wave of new American users could pose challenges for content moderators and the Chinese government, it is still “a big win” for China.
This “self-selective cohort of curious users”, she explained, is open to the possibility of being “proven wrong” about China and its people – which may be why certain US lawmakers are so outraged by the move. “If China is serious about the people-to-people exchange,” Yang said, “then perhaps there is a possibility for this kind of organic engagement to blossom for a while longer.”
One US user who followed the crowd to Xiaohongshu said they “feel right at home” on the app. While some struggled with the app’s stricter moderation rules, most have been made welcome with “cat memes, shared jokes about the [TikTok] ban and honest conversations about usually avoided topics,” Jianqing Chen, a Chinese and transnational digital media scholar, wrote for the Conversation.
TikTok says it “will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States.”
For now though, it ought to be worried about the huge defection to Xiaohongshu, which some Americans say they prefer because of its more “genteel” atmosphere. One user compared the TikTok rival to “visiting my aunt’s house” – a place where everything was nicer and tidier than his own.
