Many American content creators and users have joined Xiaohongshu (“Little Red Book”), a Chinese application similar to Instagram, sometimes presenting themselves as “refugees” from TikTok, owned by the Chinese group ByteDance, which could be banned from Sunday in the United States.
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Xiaohongshu topped free app downloads on Monday on the US Apple Store (Apple’s mobile app store), just ahead of Lemon8, another ByteDance social network.
Barring a last-minute intervention from the US Supreme Court, considered unlikely, TikTok will be banned in the United States on Sunday. The law adopted in April gives its Chinese parent company until January 19 to sell it, in the absence of a ban.
On TikTok, many American users published this weekend calls to go to Xiaohongshu, stories of their first impressions, humorous clips or even tutorials for creating a profile on the platform, which is almost entirely in Mandarin.
Many openly mock the concerns of American elected officials, Republicans and Democrats, about national security and data confidentiality, with videos saying “goodbye” to their “Chinese spy”.
“Oh, you don’t want the Chinese to have our very sensitive personal data?” quips Jen Hamilton, in a falsely innocent tone, in a video on TikTok. “Well, we’re going to give it to them directly!”, she continues with a threatening voice.
“It’s impossible to underestimate how little I care if the Chinese have my data,” adds this nurse and influencer, followed by 3.9 million people.
She thinks it’s “super fun” on “RedNote” – as American users have nicknamed Xiaohongshu – and that the platform looks like a cross between Instagram and Pinterest, with scrollable videos like on TikTok.
“The CEO (of Xiaohongshu, Editor’s note) even posted a video welcoming us, the refugees from TikTok!” she rejoices.
While content creators had for a time tried to redirect their subscribers to Instagram, some are now calling for a boycott of Instagram and Facebook, Meta’s social networks, which they accuse of having lobbied to obtain a ban on TikTok .
During a hearing Friday at the US Supreme Court, a clear majority of judges were willing to allow the law against TikTok to come into force.
The application and many NGOs accuse the text of violating freedom of expression, enshrined in the United States Constitution.
The authorities, for their part, say they want to prevent the risks of espionage and manipulation by the Chinese authorities of TikTok users, which claims 170 million in the country.
