America's TikTok ban totally backfires as users flock to rival Chinese social media app
Share:
The ban on TikTok in the US has “completely backfired” as users have piled in to another Chinese app rather than take their accounts to American versions such as Instagram and Facebook. RedNote, known as Xiaohongshu, which means ‘Little Red Book’ in China, was unknown days ago but has now surged to the top of the Apple App Store downloads, and today was the most downloaded free app in the UK. Brits appear to be following Americans by downloading the social media app, which has gained nearly a million users in the last two days, in what has been described as a “cheeky middle figure to the US government”.
And social media users have pointed out the irony that those legislating to ban TikTok, which is actually based in Singapore, on the basis that it is a threat to national security, have inadvertently pushed users to another app which really is owned by China.
One user, Ryan shared a meme of a man in shock with the words: “The US Government watching Americans jump from TikTok (not even a Chinese owned app) to RedNote (which is in fact a Chinese owned app)”. Another, Abby, wrote on X: “Lmao at thousands of people downloading RedNote (the version of Tiktok that is actually owned by China) to spite the U.S. government”.
She added that users were “finding themselves having lovely interactions with the millions of Chinese citizens on the app & inadvertently undoing decades of U.S. propaganda.”. Johannes Maria posted a video on X called “RedBook is changing everything” pointing out how new American RedNote users were discovering how similar Chinese users are to them. He said: “The wildest part about this entire shift to RedBook is that US citizens are now connected to Chinese citizens. The entire US propaganda machine that makes us afraid of them, that makes us think their lives are sh***y and in this authoritarian realm is completely shattered.”.
