Chinese app RedNote gains millions of US users this week as 'TikTok refugees' joined ahead of ban — Reuters
Chinese app RedNote gains millions of US users this week as 'TikTok refugees' joined ahead of ban — Reuters
Chinese social media app RedNote, known in China as Xiaohongshu, gained nearly 3 million U.S. users in one day earlier this week as a flood of self-proclaimed "TikTok Refugees" joined, according to new data from analytics firm Similarweb.
The Chinese-language app had about 3.4 million daily active users across both iOS and Android devices in the United States as of Monday, up from fewer than 700,000 the day prior, and around 300,000 the week prior, according to the Similarweb estimate.
The influx of users has been driven by a looming U.S. ban on TikTok, used by 170 million Americans, on national security concerns.
The data suggests an even larger shift to RedNote by U.S. users this week than was previously known, explaining its dramatic rise to the top of U.S. app store download rankings. Reuters reported on Tuesday that more than 700,000 new users had joined the app in only two days.
Meanwhile, U.S. usage of TikTok declined ahead of the ban, down 2.1% week over week to about 82.2 million daily active users, Similarweb said.
This is the first time americans are talking directly to chinese people en masse like this, no? The state department must be scrambling to get things in order. I don't think they expected the ban to backfire this bad lol
Wonder how long it'll last before it's closed off.
For many Chinese, this is also their first time talking to Americans. There are a ton of stories of them asking us if school shootings and medical bankruptcy are real or if it is just CCP anti-US propaganda. It is gut wrenching when we have to tell them that all the terrible things they have heard about the US are not only true, but worse than they imagine
If you asked an American if we use child labor they would say “of course not!” but we keep mysteriously finding kids in meat packing plants and auto manufacturing plants and farms and….
My point is that just because the average citizen doesn’t know about bad things doesn’t make the bad things non-existent.
Now I don't know what to believe.
I guess I should look at all the foreigners who think the US is some lawless wasteland and not be surprised Americans have similar misconceptions about other nations.
Chinese Rednote users actually seem to have a relatively utopian view of the US. I'm seeing alot of posts asking if it's true that most Americans can afford to own a house and being corrected by americans in the comments; stuff like that.
Also they really like Luigi Mangione lol, even before americans came into the app.
When you consider the school shootings, mass shootings, insane medical debt, and the fact that we have 8x the traffic fatality rate per capita of many developed nations, etc, I don't blame people for seeing the US as being a lawless dumpster fire.
If you disagree, next time you are out driving try to estimate how many drivers actually follow the law (drive below the speed limit, stop at crosswalks, slow down even more when visibility is poor or there are pedestrians or children nearby, etc).
Also, how many people drive small cars that are cleaner and safer for our communities vs giant Wankpanzers? People who are willing to make our cities more polluted and more dangerous for everyone overall just to make themselves slightly safer are morally bankrupt even if they technically follow the law they don't value the spirit of the law.
They keep underestimating how simpleminded people can be.
Interesting indeed, both countries' governments don't want truths out
The fear is ridiculous. Yes it's somewhat sanitised, all social media is sanitised. Shit even on lemmy large instances are going to remove a video of me showing how to inject heroin or, for a more moderate thing, explain how trans people can DIY hormones.
It is good when people from different cultures share stuff. It is good when state barriers break down and people see how we're all so similar at the end of the day.
Yes it’s somewhat sanitised, all social media is sanitised.
And it's all sanitized for good reason - the closest places to unsanitized, such as freespeechextremist, are literally just spambots, molesters, troll neo-nazis and people mechanically incapable of holding a conversation without bursting into nonsense screeds in all caps. Effectively, just the people no-one else wants to talk to.
As for the RedNote sanitizing, some of the ones I've seen newcomers getting tripped up on are rules which would make our local social media better. They seem aimed at countering grifters/influencers, sexualization for popularity (not being a prude, rather, there are plenty of other places for that content) and similar negative trends associated with TikTok.
Not for me but seems like a win overall? People are generally far less willing to hurt/fight people they know well compared to some nebulous concept of a nation. If American and Chinese people get to know eachother in a social setting it can only be a good thing.
Looks like they're starting to geolock some users, so americans mostly see posts/comments made from the US
Can't people just not be racist
At least the chuds are screeching though lol
Meirl
Just so you know, PRC is not a very inclusive place. Have a look at this article for more info.
Yeah they have a long way to go like most of the world; wish they'd just copy Cuba and the GDR on that.
Also you'd be better served with a specific documentary like this one instead of just lazily linking to wikipedia.
The saddest downvotes are the “shoot the messenger” downvotes. I find this fact inconvenient so ⬇
i need to figure out how to make the rick & morty "your boos mean nothing to me; i've seen what makes you cheer" meme more accessible somehow for this exact reason. lol
Honestly since I've learned about how the Chinese people seem to be taking it and really like the interaction with "us" I've been more interested in checking out weibo. That seems more similar to this and is more about communicating instead of pictures and videos of specific topics.
Just can't make an account for some reason lol keep getting errors in Chinese even though I'm using the international site lol
Yeah seems like Rednote is specifically centered around lifestyle and art while Weibo and Baidu are for general use
DON’T 👏 INSTALL 👏 小红书 — It gave me third degree Havana syndrome, which my health insurance won’t cover.
If the CIA agents in Havana don't get Cuban healthcare benefits, they should just quit.
Isn't that similar to how Americans and Russians were interested in knowing more about each other during Cold War?
US people once again realizing that they are not the center of the world
"We want all the benefits of globalism, with none of the responsibility!"
Uhmmmm no thanks lol WTF
If only there was a no button...
But why would any legitimate app ask for a permission for which there is practically no legitimate use? I thought Rednote was a social media thing, not a Caller application, so why does it need to make and manage phone calls on my behalf?
What else is it doing that it doesn't need to ask permissions for? Please think critically.
And yes before someone mentions It, yes this can be used for getting a phone number automatically, but It can just prompt for my phone number (which it doesn't need anyway, unless you post), no legitimate need to ask for such a broad permission.
More to the point, why tf are y'all so chill about this? Surely this is like literally a sign of malware 101? Like I'm only a compsci & cybersec grad so what do I know, but this to me is equivalent to opening "not a virus.exe" from "veryrealmoviedownload.com". Literally first malware I got as a kid on Android was like this.
I thought awareness of this was pretty commonplace. The below image is literally a Facebook-tier meme that even grampa probably knows.
Are y'all just that desperate for a win? Sorry, good things don't actually happen in our hell world.
Is this a normal thing for apps to do these days? I don't use any other SM apart from Lemmy and only F-Droid FOSS apps so i'd legitimately like to know. Does tiktok also prompt for making and managing phone calls?
lmao what the fuck
Thousands of people download this shit too.
There's a "don't allow" button right there. And the message on top of it for "System Permissions" literally says, "you can say no to giving permissions and only certain functions of the app will not work"
I don't know what the issue is here. You can probably call people through the app, since you sign up with a phone number.
Just read this. Is it Opposite Day? Why are dems being corporate shills and republicans being based??
https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-trump-executive-order-1e95d9836bf6f8c0c245ed1c3234d968
Democrats had tried on Wednesday to pass legislation that would have extended the deadline, but Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas blocked it. Cotton, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that TikTok has had ample time to find a buyer.
“TikTok is a Chinese Communist spy app that addicts our kids, harvests their data, targets them with harmful and manipulative content, and spreads communist propaganda,” Cotton said.
They're equally racist. Dems are probably trying to damage control and convince people not to join Rednote and stay on Tiktok until it's banned
Never forget the broad bipatisan support for blind support of the genocide being carried out by Israel.
The current Republican party is definitely the worse of the two, but it's small margins. The Democrats, with a few exceptions (that I'm sure would be Independents if there was actually any point to that in the American electoral system,) only barely qualify as liberal these days. They keep shifting further right to try and capture some of the less rabid "disenfranchised" republican voters. End of the day this is doing damage to American democracy too.
Neither party in America is anti-corporate
Yes please everyone from the banned app move to an app that has a solid chance of being banned for the exact same reason. Unbelievably dumb but I guess we are talking about the tictok user base so I shouldn't be surprised.
That's the point? It's people signalling they're not dumb enough to believe the US's "national security" shit and would trust China's products over american ones like Meta or Xitter
Despite China history with the Uyghurs, child labor, and many other human rights violations and completely ignoring the fact that the people of China have a mile long list of apps they're not allowed to download and a longer list of things they're not allowed to speak about. These people sure know how to signal.
Is any reporter going to actually look into this? I have serious doubts that a slew of English speaking TikTok users who can barely use their phones to begin with are going to mass migrate to a Chinese language app just to watch lame ass videos. This really feels like some sort of propaganda campaign.
You can download the app and see for yourself ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I just checked it out today and it seems like at least a third of the active users are american. I'm sure that will die down some after the curiosity dwindles but there is absolutely a massive surge of English speakers on there.
Most of the activity is in the comments. Lots of culture shock happening as I type this.
unhinged conspiracy theory? check. condescending smugness? check. absolutely no effort to do any research before commenting? check.
well if it isn't lemmy.world
Fake news! 😂 Such copium.
Trump promoting the best commie coffee
They literally can't live without the lame ass videos though.
