Social media large TikTok is making ready to close down its app in the USA this Sunday – the day that laws signed by President Joe Biden final yr banning the app takes impact.
There’s a slim likelihood this dramatic growth won’t occur if the US Supreme Court docket accepts a final minute authorized argument from TikTok’s Chinese language proprietor, ByteDance, that the ban is unconstitutional – or if ByteDance divests its US operations.
However the 170 million customers of TikTok within the US aren’t taking any possibilities. Many self-described “TikTok refugees” have begun to flee to various social media websites, mocking the alleged safety issues on TikTok within the course of. “Goodbye to my Chinese spy” has develop into a brand new TikTok development.
The most well-liked various that has emerged is the Chinese language social media app Xiaohongshu (referred to as RedNote in English). On January 13, the app surged to primary within the US Apple App Retailer, attracting greater than 700,000 new customers.
This mass digital migration of social media customers marks a brand new part within the ongoing digital chilly warfare between the US and China. However there are various questions on whether or not RedNote – or some other various platform – shall be a viable, long-term refuge for US TikTok customers if the ban goes forward.
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♬ оригинальный звук – 𝓞𝓹𝓮𝓻𝓪.𝓥𝓸𝓲𝓬𝓮𝓼.𝓐𝓻𝓽
What’s RedNote?
Owned by Shanghai-based Xingyin Info Expertise and established in 2013, RedNote is a Chinese language-language life-style, social networking and e-commerce platform. It has a hybrid model of Instagram-meets-Pinterest and roughly 300 million month-to-month lively customers – nearly all of whom are in China.
RedNote shops its customers’ private knowledge in China, in compliance with China’s knowledge safety and cybersecurity legal guidelines and different regulatory insurance policies.
However RedNote isn’t the one various platform customers are migrating to. One other is Lemon8, additionally owned by ByteDance, which payments itself as a “lifestyle community”. First launched in Japan in 2020, it had the second high spot within the Apple App Retailer – after RedNote – earlier this week. The app permits current TikTok customers emigrate their account handles and knowledge.
Like TikTok, Lemon8 shops knowledge of customers outdoors China, together with within the US and Singapore. Nevertheless, if the US authorities does ban TikTok it might simply use the identical rationale to ban Lemon8.
Different native US-based various platforms, reminiscent of Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, will not be seen as very best choices by many customers. It’s because they’re much less creator-friendly and lack a robust sense of neighborhood.
Many see RedNote as the very best various given its comparable content material model and algorithms to TikTok and community-driven attraction. Extra importantly, the platform is past the management of the US authorities and can’t be instantly banned.
On the time of writing, the hashtag “TikTok refugee” had garnered about 250 million views and over 5.5 million feedback on RedNote. Some US customers satirically defined their transfer to the platform out of spite:
for the reason that US authorities is frightened about our private knowledge being taken by China, let’s simply hand it instantly over to the Chinese language authorities. Are you going to remove my cell?
A ‘Western awakening movement’
Chinese language customers of RedNote are enthusiastically embracing TikTok refugees from the US.
For instance, they’re producing tutorial movies to show new customers the right way to navigate the app. This hospitality is summed up by one standard remark from a Chinese language consumer on the platform who mentioned: “friends who come over from TikTok, I want to say, you are not refugees, you are brave explorers.”
The brand new migration to RedNote has additionally intensified nationwide delight of Chinese language web customers.
They vividly seek advice from the migration as a “Western awakening movement”, which permits US residents to open their eyes to see the world outdoors the centre of the west.
This phrase was coined in reference to the “self-strengthening movement” in China within the late nineteenth century – a reform effort geared toward modernising China by adopting Western applied sciences, data and values.
The surprising migration has seen some RedNote-related shares surge by as a lot as 20% earlier this week.
Folks-to-people diplomacy
The constructive interactions between American and Chinese language web customers assist promote the Communist Social gathering of China’s concept of “people-to-people diplomacy”. This concept is greatest summed up by Chinese language President Xi Jinping, who in July 2024 mentioned
the hope of the China-US relationship lies within the individuals, its basis is within the two societies, its future is dependent upon the youth, and its vitality comes from exchanges at subnational ranges.
Nevertheless, RedNote won’t be a viable, long-term refuge for US TikTok customers.
Their sudden migration to RedNote could possibly be extra like a flash mob protest in opposition to the TikTok ban. It might not be straightforward for them to get used to a really totally different digital ecosystem – and decide to completely reside on the Chinese language app.
RedNote has already posted a job advert to urgently recruit content material moderators who perceive English to deal with the dramatic development of English-speaking customers.
It’s additionally price nothing that the migration to RedNote remains to be very small, and solely a fraction of the 170 million individuals within the US who use TikTok.
The US authorities additionally has the authority to stress Apple to take away RedNote from the US App Retailer if it thinks the migration poses a nationwide safety risk.
No matter whether or not this occurs, the mass migration of TikTok refugees to RedNote – even whether it is short-term – reveals the US’s regulation of digital applied sciences, pushed by geopolitical competitors, has considerably fractured the worldwide web. Thankfully, we now have witnessed the spirit of optimism and humanitarianism amongst US and Chinese language web customers amid the stress of the digital chilly warfare.
Jian Xu, Affiliate Professor in Communication, Deakin College
This text is republished from The Dialog beneath a Inventive Commons license. Learn the unique article.
