Duolingo sees 216% spike in US users learning Chinese amid TikTok ban and move to RedNote
Duolingo sees 216% spike in US users learning Chinese amid TikTok ban and move to RedNote
TikTok U.S. users have been learning Chinese on Duolingo in increasing numbers amid their adoption of a Chinese social app called RedNote ahead of the
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/52721306
Digital nomads gone wrong
imagine being THIS attached to brain rot apps
That’s what happens when you have some of the best user experience people and engineers in the world specifically designing for addiction. Facebook is no different, but their most successful demographic is. My grandma is hopelessly addicted to scrolling FB reels and my fiancé is hopelessly addicted to scrolling IG stories. Different target demographic, same goals
A point for irony, NGL. ⬆️
Soon Duolingo will be teaching you phrases like "Down with the imperialist scum!"
This news is brought to you by the company of China 🇨🇳
People are fucking stupid. I don't think there's any point in banning TikTok but they're not wrong when they say it pushes Chinese propaganda and they're probably not wrong when they say that they're using it to spy on people.
So angry TikTok users want to make that worse for themselves out of spite?
Idiots.
For most people, the personal consequences of China being able to spy on them are nonexistent. The government that can actually abuse such power against them, e.g. prosecute them for out of state abortions, is the US.
So protesting the US banning an app and trying to force people to use their own spyware social media makes some level of sense.
It's still obviously better to use privacy preserving and/or federated services, but that's not something most people know about or understand.
I literally had a friend breaking down over it and I suggested Fediverse alternatives and they looked at me like I had sprouted an extra head.
I even explained that US companies aren't doing anything materially different than Tiktok (propaganda and spying on people), and they're all bad. Still looking at me like I'm some kind of maniac.
Everyone bitches about corporations but so few want to actually stop sucking on their fucking teat.
People hate thinking. It blows my mind, but it's the only thing I know for sure.
Half the population thought the US government was trying to kill them with a vaccine and a face mask while they coughed themselves to death.
You're absolutely right, people are fucking stupid.
Maybe they were only in it for the propaganda?
I do love that some of the "refugees" (lol) are just moving to an even more Chinese app though. I don’t think it’s all that many but the propaganda pointing toward propaganda is hilarious.
Honestlyyyyy and yet when I speak about actually ethical alternatives, ppl then be like nah cba, too difficult, too much effort or too complicated when it only takes five mins or less to make an account and yet these same god damn ppl expect you to always listen to them.
We honestly truly live in a society.
People only want to make a difference if it only gives them good social points, not actual change or things that enable for them to actually think critically and change their viewpoints.
Feels pretty hopeless tbh esp as this is only the beginning of 2025 as well but hey at least there’s some logical people on here (though you do get the occasional dumbass on lemmy/mbin)
Political content is entirely banned on the app so your assertion that it pushes political propaganda when it refuses to host anything political at all is kind of reactionary fake news.
Who defines what is political content? Who controls it? Since when is all propaganda political?
Is a video talking about China's terrific business opportunities political? No. Is it propaganda? Yes.
(Also, "political content is entirely banned" = no photos of the tank man or cartoons of Winnie the Pooh.)
Duolingo:
All the women in my office said everyone is moving to Lemonade. They said, “why would we move to another Chinese app? That’s dumb.”
No idea who owns Lemonade but it was interesting to me that they were not interested at all in Rednote.
Lemonade is an insurance company, yeah, they moving their car insurance ti Lemonade.
It’s actually Lemon8
i knew that damn owl was going to get involved in corporate lobbying at some point
A 216% increase sounds impressive, but probably isn't because the starting number is very small.
Jokes on you I'm using it to learn Spanish.
Jokes on you I'm using it to be disappointed in myself.
Honestly I had that app on my phone for 3 months before I actually started using so I feel you there. It's not that bad to start off with and it starts super slow. And fuck streaks and notifications and all that shit I just do it when I'm bored instead of scrolling and refreshing pages on my social media of choice.
Big Language works in timescales unimaginable.