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With the US government In TikTok set to go live on Sunday, Americans have flocked to the alternative social media platform, but it’s another Chinese app, and experts say it could pose the same, if not more, problems. There has been a surge in downloads of the Chinese app Xiaohongshu, or “RedNote,” as many users call it, in the US.
A US official told CBS News on Thursday that RedNote, just like TikTok, could face an ultimatum to go free or be banned.
“This appears to be the type of app that the statute would apply to and could face the same restrictions as TikTok if not exempted,” a US official told CBS News.
ANNA KURTH/AFP/Getty
CBS News reached out to Xiaohongshu for comment on whether the company would agree with that assessment.
What is RedNote?
Xiaohongshu is the most downloaded free app in Apple’s US app store as of Tuesday. An analysis by Sensor Tower, a market research firm, found that downloads of the platform in the US were up 200% year-over-year and were up 194% since last week.
QR Code Generator, a company that provides statistics on Internet trends, said it saw a 4,900% increase in Google searches for Xiaohongshu in the US on Monday alone.
Founded in 2013, Xiaohongshu is a lifestyle platform “where more than 300 million users share their life experiences every month,” according to a description on Apple’s app store.
The Chinese photo and video sharing platform is often compared to Instagram. It acts as an e-commerce platform, a handbook for travel and fine dining tips, and a means of sharing content from users’ daily lives.
Xiaohongshu literally translates from Mandarin as “little red book”, possibly a reference to the famous little red book of quotes by Chairman Mao Zedong, the founder of communism China.
That reference didn’t deter many American users who turned to the app to share their experiences as so-called “TikTok refugees” ahead of the US ban. Videos involving the use of the term “TikTok refugee” on RedNote have garnered millions of views and impressions this week.
“This is for my fellow TikTok refugees and Americans, behave yourself on this app! Better behave because everyone in China is so nice to us as we colonize their cute app just because our government sucks,” one US user account using the name “Savannah” released Wednesday. The post had nearly 128,000 impressions as of Thursday.
TikTok, in its international form, it is not available to users in mainland China, meaning that the American exodus to Xiaohongshu has put Americans in closer contact with Chinese users than they have ever been. This led to some fun cultural exchanges.
An American “TikTok refugee” with the username “anieladiaz” posted a video asking Chinese users if they had any questions. A Chinese user commented below the post with a screenshot of what appeared to be their English homework. Anieladiaz was happy to provide answers to the test questions, which they shared in their own screenshot. Other Chinese users post videos teaching Americans how to use Mandarin slang words.
Is RedNote safe?
The surge in downloads in the US could be cause for concern for the same US lawmakers who banned TikTok. One cybersecurity expert told CBS News that RedNote may actually pose an even bigger threat.
“RedNote was never intended outside of the Chinese market. All the data exchange and all the servers to which the data is shared are in China,” Adrianus Warmenhoven, cybersecurity expert at Nord VPN, told CBS News on Wednesday. “That means they are exempt from all these data protections and out of sight of the US government.”
Warmenhoven said that TikTok and its parent company ByteDance at least stored the data on US-based servers, giving the US government “some moderation or restrictions on the data that can be sent to China and how much and by what means”.
He also said RedNote’s terms and conditions lacked transparency, which he said posed a major cybersecurity risk to Americans.
“Its terms and conditions are in Mandarin, leaving non-Chinese-speaking users unclear about what data is collected and how it is used,” Warmenhoven said. “I’m pretty sure those millions who are moving aren’t using Google Translate to read (terms and conditions) so they don’t know what they’re agreeing to.”
The specific one American legislation used to ban TikTok — the “Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act,” which President Biden signed last April, gives the federal government broad scope to crack down on foreign social media platforms.
Under the law, Congress can force a platform to divest its US operations from foreign ownership and can be shut down if it qualifies as a threat. The law can apply to any platform that allows users to share content with each other, has more than one million monthly active users, is owned by a company located in a country controlled by a foreign enemy, and has been designated by the president to present a significant threat to national security.
The law is currently subject to a legal challenge by ByteDance, which has argued that it is unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment, which protects free speech. The solution from The Supreme Court is ongoing in that case.
CBS News asked President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team whether the new administration might consider RedNote a national security threat that should be subject to legislation. The transition team had not responded by the time this article was published.
Trump recently spoke out against banning TikTok. Last month, he said he had a “warm spot in my heart” for TikTok — the opposite of his stance when he was last in the Oval Office.
The Federal Trade Commission, the agency tasked with enforcing the ban and ensuring that US Internet service providers and app store companies such as Apple and Google comply with the law, declined to comment.
RedNote is heavily censored
The content on RedNote seems to be much larger heavily censored but posts on TikTok. A CBS News analysis found that any search for “Xi Jinping,” China’s autocratic president, on RedNote returned no results.
The phrase “Free Hong Kong” also did not bring results. A search for “Taiwan” will bring up several memes welcoming Americans to the platform, but with the caveat that users must recognize the Beijing-imposed narrative that the democratically governed island off China’s coast, which the US is legally obligated to help defend against invasion, is an inseparable part of China.
A similar search for those terms on TikTok reveals a wide range of users’ political opinions, including posts strongly critical of Chinese censorship.
RedNote even appears to be ramping up content monitoring operations given the large number of Americans signing up to the app. CBS News Found local job ads which the company posted online in mainland China, advertising content review jobs in English and promising a monthly salary of between $950 and $1,200.
“Users are not going to a place with more freedom. RedNote is moderated differently and the algorithm is different than TikTok,” Warmenhoven told CBS News. “You’re not going to get traction or spread politically sensitive issues, or maybe socially sensitive issues — especially issues that are socially sensitive in China.”
