With a potential TikTok ban on January 19 looming over the United States, American TikTok users are moving en masse to RedNote, a Chinese social media app. Known in China as Xianhongshu, which literally translates to “little red book” (yes, the allegory isn’t lost here), the app is currently sitting at the top of the social media charts in the App store, gaining over half a million new users over the last few days.

　　In a display of camaraderie, users — monikered “TikTok refugees” on the platform — flocked to RedNote, and Chinese and American users have taken to using the shared platform as an opportunity of a rare and (as of yet) fraternal cultural exchange.

　　The relevance of the attempts to ban TikTok and the flight to another Chinese social media network needs to be seen against the backdrop of the geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China, which are growing more acute. Positing that the Chinese government has access to and can mine the platform’s data on Americans for its political ends, Joe Biden signed a law which received bipartisan support last spring, requiring TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the platform to an American company or face a ban on national security grounds.

　　While such spying by the Chinese state is as yet unfounded, the battle over the future of TikTok is a small slice into the growing competition between the two world powers, particularly in the realm of technology, including 5G, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, semiconductors, and cybersecurity.

　　Now, as pressures mount on ByteDance to divest from TikTok, American buyers are lining up to pick up the platform’s American assets. The company, however, has indicated that even if it were to do so, it has no intention of selling its algorithm — reliant on the efforts of a large workforce in China that manually tags and annotates content — which is what gives the app an important edge over its competition.

　　A sector of lawmakers and media, furthermore, also blamed TikTok for “promoting Chinese propaganda.” While such interference so far, too, lacks evidence, the social media platform came under particular scrutiny during last year’s Congressional hearings, especially as the movement for Palestine raged on. While American social media giants like Meta and X suppressed pro-Palestine content and boosted Israeli propaganda, young people turned to TikTok to hear and amplify Palestinian voices and the calls for an end to Israel’s genocide.

　　As the deadline for sale approaches and a TikTok ban becomes more real, the exodus to RedNote by hundreds of thousands of American users not only flies in the face of the U.S. state’s attempts, but also of American tech giants like Meta and YouTube who seem unlikely to capture this new audience despite having made efforts to shift towards short form video content. Indeed, across both TikTok and RedNote, users and content creators have voiced their frustration with the U.S. government and a staunch refusal to bow to the rules imposed by it.

　　In perhaps one of the most notable outcomes of this saga so far, over on RedNote, American and Chinese users have taken to an exchange of cultures that has few parallels in the digital age. Despite the great power rivalry in the backdrop that drives anti-China or anti-U.S. chauvinism on both sides, users have been using it as an opportunity to learn more about the other, especially as RedNote, as of yet, maintains only one version of the app, instead of splitting it into overseas and domestic apps (like ByteDance did with TikTok and Douyin, for example, to comply with the Chinese government’s moderation rules). 

　　Chinese users extended a warm welcome to the so-called “TikTok refugees,” making instructional videos on the app on learning Mandarin and about Chinese culture. Meanwhile, American users took to sharing snippets of their lives and culture, paying the proverbial “cat tax,” and helping Chinese kids with their English homework. The mutual curiosity, notably, has also encompassed matters of life, with both demographics exchanging on key ideas such as healthcare, military, and even mutual admiration for Luigi Mangione. 

　　However, both American and Chinese users have voiced their fears about how long this exchange will last, especially given the United States’ attacks on TikTok, and China’s own censorship laws which greatly limit free exchange on the platform. Indeed, despite any personal camaraderie, users are still bound by the platform’s content moderation: notably, any mention of labor strikes, student suicides, and criticisms of the Chinese Communist Party are heavily moderated or banned, setting real limits on freedom of speech. 

　　Yet, despite the interests of the capitalists and the states that back them, the spontaneous exchange between U.S. and Chinese users on RedNote is a small kernel of what is possible: instead of technology in service of profit and the states that govern on behalf of it, we must fight for technology under worker control and in the service of our class, which holds the potential of unlocking our enormous power and creativity. In the face of the divisions imposed on us, we can learn and fight together, and transform the world with our mutual cooperation.

　　Editor: Zhong Yao  Deng Panyi

　　From:https://www.leftvoice.org/in-dramatic-irony-young-people-flock-to-chinese-app-rednote-ahead-of-looming-tiktok-ban/ (2025-1-16)