The Shanghai-owned social media platform Xiaohongshu, or RedNote in English, experienced a spike in downloads as some TikTok users are downloading the app as a U.S. ban on the latter looms.
Until late December 2024, more than 85% of RedNote users were based in China. On Tuesday, It was the most downloaded free app in the U.S. Apple store.
The app boasts more than 300 million people, most of whom reside in China. While the app does not start playing videos automatically like TikTok, it is a short video- and photo-sharing platform that uses a similar algorithm to give users a curated feed based on their previous interests. It has a layout similar to Pinterest and is often described as a Chinese version of Instagram.
“How funny would it be if they ban TikTok and we all just move over to this Chinese app,” TikTok creator Manimatana Lee posted to her TikTok account Monday.
According to the Financial Times, RedNote has become one of China’s fastest-growing social platforms, with a value of over $17 billion since its launch in 2013.
Some Americans on Xiaohongshu have posted content under the hashtag “TikTokrefugee,” which had been viewed 100 million times and sparked about 2.5 million discussion threads on the app by Tuesday, according to the New York Times. Additionally on Tuesday, more than 100,000 people had joined a live group chat hosted by a user named “TikTok Refugee Club,” where people access the globe with Chinese users about urban safety.
In May 2024, President Joe Biden signed a law that would ban TikTok from U.S. app stores on Sunday if the app’s parent company, ByteDance, did not sell TikTok, which executives have repeatedly said they are not willing to do. For years, lawmakers on Capitol Hill had warned of Chinese influence on TikTok and passed its ban with bipartisan support in April.
President-elect Donald Trump in 2020 attempted to ban the app via executive order, but five years later, he has switched his tune and has expressed his support for keeping the app around. The Supreme Court heard an argument to halt the TikTok ban on free speech concerns, but the high court appeared poised to hold the ban on national security concerns.
Some TikTok users have joked about saying “goodbye” to their “Chinese spy” in a nod to congressional concerns that the Chinese Communist Party is using TikTok to access Americans’ data, including users’ location and browsing histories.
TikTok has 300 million users worldwide, including 170 million in the United States, according to the company. Americans downloading and using RedNote, on the other hand, has put them in closer contact with people online in China than had been TikTok. Many RedNote users shared tips on how to navigate the app, which is mainly made for and used by people who read and speak Mandarin.
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Xiaohongshu additionally displays the city or province of Chinese users who post and comment and the country for users outside China.
“We are coming to the Chinese spies and begging them to let us stay here,” one American user said on RedNote. “Approved, welcome to Red Note,” someone in Shanghai replied.