TikTok under pressure. While a law requires Chinese entertainment giant ByteDance to sell its TikTok platform by January 19, 2025, under penalty of ban in the country where the application has 170 million users, numerous content creators and American users are joining Xiaohongshu (“Little Red Book”), a Chinese app similar to Instagram, whose name is a curious reference to Mao Zedong’s communist propaganda book. These influencers in full exodus present themselves as “refugees” of TikTok, owned by the Chinese group ByteDance.
Proof of its success, Xiaohongshu was at the top of free application downloads on Monday January 13 on the American Apple Store (Apple's mobile application store), just ahead of Lemon8, another ByteDance social network. On TikTok, many American users published this weekend calls to flock to this new social network, shared stories of their first impressions and 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 alike, about national security and data privacy, with videos to say “Goodbye” to their “Chinese spy”.
“I don’t care if the Chinese have my data”
“Oh, you don’t want the Chinese to have our very sensitive personal data?”quips a content creator, 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 finds that it is “super funny” on «Red Note»– as American users have nicknamed Xiaohongshu – and that the platform resembles 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 .
A potential ban
During a hearing last Friday at the US Supreme Court, a clear majority of judges were willing to allow the law against TikTok to come into force on January 19. For their part, the Chinese application and numerous NGOs accuse the text of violating freedom of expression, enshrined in the United States Constitution. On the contrary, the authorities say they want to prevent the risks of espionage and manipulation by the Chinese authorities of TikTok users.
If the application wants to remain in the territory, and for the moment, this will only be possible if it manages to be bought. So far, no potential buyer has officially come forward, but according to the Bloomberg agency, Elon Musk could be a potential buyer. “According to a scenario envisaged by the Chinese government, X (…) would take control of American TikTok and manage the two companies together”Bloomberg specified, estimating the value of TikTok's operations in the United States between 40 and 50 billion dollars.
But this Tuesday, January 14, TikTok qualified as «pure fiction» the information according to which Chinese authorities would evaluate the possibility of an acquisition by Elon Musk of his American activities if the popular platform was banned in the United States by the end of the week. “We cannot be expected to comment on pure fiction,” a TikTok spokesperson scathed to AFP on Tuesday.
Update : at 11:30 a.m., with TikTok's denial about possible negotiations for the takeover of its American activities by Elon Musk.
