1mo ago

With a TikTok Ban Looming, Users Flee to Chinese App ‘Red Note’

www.wired.com With a TikTok Ban Looming, Users Flee to Chinese App ‘RedNote’

Some say they joined Xiaohongshu, which translates to “little red book,” to spite the US government after a ban on TikTok became more likely.

American Tiktok users would rather use ACTUAL Chinese spyware app than Meta. XiaoHongShu (meaning "Little Red Book") and ChatGPT (for translating the Mandarin only app) are currently #1 and #2 on the App store.

59 comments

Pro Tip: Loops is a federated short form video platform.
Doesn't surprise me though, that most will jump ship to another Chinese spyware instead.
- Loops is great but it’s not a TikTok replacement for the average TikTok user. The average TikTok user likes TikTok’s algorithms
  
  That is a fair point, but I've seen @dansup@mastodon.social talking about what he plans to do about the algorithm to keep privacy-friendly. If I'm not wrong, I recall something along the lines of having the option to self-host your own algorithm recommendation.
- A lot of them are going to it because it's Chinese Spyware, just to be petty to the government.
  
  Yep, the sentiment is overwhelmingly what's so bad about China having our data when Meta does exactly the same if not worse. There's literal memes about skipping the middleman and sending it directly to China.
  Quite a bunch are also learning mandarin to integrate better with them and a lot of chatter about how the divide is entitely made up by the government. The governments are fighting but the people on both sides are nice.
  Some culture shock for americans is families in China can actually afford to stock up on food without going broke. Like, a lot of americans are seeing through the US propaganda for the first time.
  They might not have free speech there and the guidelines are pretty strict, but one glaring thing is it's just a good experience there. No arguing, no shitty political takes. The lack of constant negativity and fighting is a breath of fresh air compared to what the american social medias are pushing non-stop because it's clicks and views and ad money.
  I think it's all a good thing: diversification of social media platforms so you get different perspectives and cultures. We get to see first hand what life really is over there and the reverse as well. And the likelyhood that both the US and China pressure social medias to silence the same discourse is pretty small. You can make fun of Trump and Musk all day there and you won't mysteriously get burried by the algorithn because Elon pulled some strings to quiet it down. The good stuff has a tendency of being on the other side of borders.
  You know the government fucked up big time when thousands of americans are fleeing to Chinese apps and learning the language and all.
  
  Holy ideology, Batman!
  
  Huh!?
- Implementation is too slow - no plug and play app - why would they use it over an app you just need to download to use? I mean same problem as with all federation software: no central guarantors that you will always be able to chat with everyone, too much politics between all instances involved etc. which honestly is the whole point, but that's not what normies want.
  
  You can also just download loops? Afaik there is only one instance at the moment either way

Bro loops is right there
- Bro, who downvoted you?? 😂
  How dare you point out the obvious correct choice as an alternative.
  
  Simply having the same or similar features alone doesn't make it a viable replacement. I switched from Instagram to Pixelfed and went from hardly anyone seeing my photography to literally no one seeing it.

The rednote move is mostly a form of protest. People are fully aware its a dumb idea for privacy.
- It's a bad form of protest, because it doesn't do what protests are meant to do, but okay.
  
  Protests are about bringing visibility about an issue to a wider audience right?
  Tons of news coverage, anyone on the app store or play store are seeing the App at the top of the charts, sounds like visibility to me!

US Spyware app, Chinese Spyware app, whatever its all the same.
- Even our spyware is bloody branded. Cant wait for the British ones.
  
  Be the change you wish to see in the world! Just fork loops , add data collection, trackers, and whatever backdoor the government asks you and call it something like 'Innit!'. Simple as.
  
  It already existed. They called it Bebo before it went Bebust.
  
  It's just like TikTok, but if you don't drink milk in your tea, you will be exposed to corrective content as needed

The Chinese users are actually pretty welcoming and funny
They keep harassing US users for pictures of their cats.

What the fuck are people doing
- Sticking their middle fingers to the government? I even saw a trend where people were talking about live streaming on red note and just walking through all the government buildings near them.
  
  Sticking their middle finger to the government so they can keep using another government’s spyware?
  Ok.
  
  Nothing says sticking it to the government like some treason, right guys? /s

Lol, I just got flamed in a Lemmy.ml community for condemning this shit
- Am I missing something? Nothing in the ML thread you were in reads remotely close to flaming to me.
  
  User could’ve been referring to:
  Oh hi, you're awake from your coma. A lot has happened in the last 40 years. Culottes came back, but are already out of fashion again. There's more, but I'm not sure where to start.
- I mean it's pretty funny, innit?
  It's a Chinese app what of it?

It would be funny if tiktok just put out a transfer request to everyone's accounts and then make a new company called toktik and all content gets transferred with any account that opts in. Then the government has to go through the whole process to shut down toktik again.
- There’s no process to go through again. The law is in place now. It didn’t Target TikTok specifically by name. It’s based on foreign company ownership and number of US users. I don’t know the specifics though

I misread that as TikTok banning looming and spent far too much time wondering what looming is. Some sort of viral textile meme ...

XIAOOOO HOONG SHUUUUUUUUUU
💸💸💸💸💸

Chinese = Bad
Russian = Bad
Iran = Bad
USA = We are the only good guys.
- USA = We are the only good guys.
  Nobody but the gov itself and right-wing nutjobs is saying that.
  It is in fact possible to criticize China, Russia, Iran AND the US at the same time
  They are all complacent in crimes and human rights violations in one form or another
  
  Yeah, but one of those governments can get you right now.
  The other one has to cross international borders.
  Honestly, using a foreign social media site is a hilarious move.
  If I wanted to criticize the government, especially my own, I can see the reasoning behind using a foreign platform to do it on.
  
  Domestic companies prefer foreign companies be banned. Competition is bad for business after all.
- imagine my surprise at learning this comment came from lemmy.ml
- Lol. Everyone is the bad guy. The ruling oligarchy of every nation is horrendous.
- Tug o war works because the rope is strong enough to withstand the pull. In online political tug o war, you’re the rope. Most people would naturally dislike the folks trying to turn them into rope.
  
  can i be the dog

59 comments