What is RedNote - the Chinese social media app TikTok users are 'migrating' to
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Chinese social media app RedNote has quickly become the most downloaded app on the Apple's US App Store in recent days, ahead of a potential US ban on TikTok. TikTok's Chinese owners ByteDance are facing the prospect of the popular app being shut down permanently in America on Sunday, when a US government ban is due to take effect.
The law, signed off by US President Joe Biden in April, requires TikTok to break ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance by mid-January - or else it will be blocked in the country. The ban is over concerns from some US politicians that ByteDance might share user data from TikTok with the Chinese government, despite repeated assurances from the firm that it would not.
But with so many video-sharing platforms like TikTok on the market, why are its users flooding to RedNote - and what is the app like?. What is RedNote?. RedNote, known as Xiaohongshu in China, is a Chinese-language social media app which is now available in English.
The app, founded in 2013 by Shanghai-based Xingyin Information Technology, is hugely popular in Mandarin-speaking countries and has more than 300 million monthly active users, according to Bloomberg. While it grew steadily over the years, its biggest boom in popularity came during the pandemic.
It is not exactly a TikTok clone, and has been compared more closely to Instagram. While it offers short-form videos and images to users via an algorithm like TikTok, text posts and shopping features are also prominent. The interface is different from TikTok's in that a video does not immediately start playing upon opening the app, and users must log in to begin using it.
