3w ago

What is RedNote? The TikTok alternative that doesn't allow showing skin or LGBTQ+ content

www.advocate.com What is RedNote? The TikTok alternative that doesn't allow showing skin or LGBTQ+ content

With heavy censorship of bodies and LGBTQ+ topics, RedNote might not be everything TikTok refugees are seeking.

TikTok refugees have already noted harsh restrictions on RedNote that have resulted in their content being removed or their accounts being suspended, including for mentioning LGBTQ+ identities or for women, wearing a slightly low-cut top.

48 comments

Anyone else feel like the RedNote content is probably all AI faked and very few Americans are actually using it?
- definitely not astroturfing, no sir, no influence campaign going on here, nothing unusual to see, please go back to consuming content without questioning who is pushing it or how or why
  
  People like you are missing the point. I think many people are very sober about what is going on, but nothing unites people like stupid fucking policies.
  Prohibition culture just leads to acts of rebellion. The more you tell young people not to do something, the more they want it. It’s not about red note, it’s that this TikTok ban is stupid and people find this whole thing entertaining
- I kinda wanna try a speedrun of how fast I can get myself banned
  
  Just start talking about tiananmen square, they hate that
- It’s bias but most of my coworkers who used TikTok have already switched over. We’ll see if it’s a trend or if they keep using it.

It's almost like we need to regulate social media to not spread disinfo, protect vulnerable groups, and preserve privacy of their users in general instead of focusing on one-off bans.

.ml and .hexbear have been salivating over this shit. "See China good, people nice, no problems here". My favorite so far is "tiktokers are fighting back the US government by using another countries platform!"
I promise you 95% of the influx into rednote, didn't choose it to give a middle finger to the US govt.. They did it because some influencers just picked another popular social app and joined. Their followers just followed suit so they could see where they went. More people followed, and here we are. Now the people turning the wheels behind the scenes see all these ripe targets for foreign national misinformation campaigns.
It's fun for a while being immersed in another culture, but once enough people see the real restrictions, it'll lose users and onto the next platform.
- Rednote is a tankies wet dream. It felt like I was taken back to cold war propaganda times. Communism vs Capitalism. Luigi the peoples champion, to start the downfall of Capitalism. It's weird to me that anyone who thinks a small group of wealthy people that controls everything by whatever name is a good thing.

No one should be surprised, China is a very homophobic country, alongside it's xenophobia in thinking that homosexuality is a western invention.

Why is this the exact opposite of what I've been reading Lemmy users say about their experience? Especially the LGBTQ experience?
- Because a large percentage of Lemmy are tankies?
  
  But why would they lie to each other? I don't block many communities so I stumble into their conversations too and they're just talking to each other about it
- Yeah I've given it a try and honestly I probably won't use it long term because well... It's all in Chinese and as cool as it would be to learn a new language (any language really) I don't have the time or energy to do that.
  In my short experience there's a lot of lesbians on there, and "skin" gets shown quite a bit. I saw someone pole dancing in a jinx cosplay.
  There's some cool things the app does I wish we had an English alternative, it's like tiktok combined with Pinterest? So there's better category sorting and you can save stuff in collections.
  I also really have enjoyed the comments from Chinese people. It's really fun hearing their stories. I honestly sometimes forget, with how much we talk about China bad in America, that they're just people too? They're curious about our pets, they want to see what food we eat. Someone had hundreds of Chinese people try grilled cheese Sandwhiches.
  Its a cultural exchange in the digital age that I've never seen before and honestly... I hope it sticks for that alone.
  
  If you're looking to learn a new language that's actually useful to learn and also pretty easy, I would recommend Indonesian. It's a bastardized version of Malaysian but with more thought put into it.
  Edit: As others have pointed out, it's not actually a useful language to learn unless you're in Indonesia, so I retract that.
  
  Depending on how you view it you could install a translation extension/plugin.
  I was thinking about checking out weibo now that I know the Chinese people have really been enjoying the interaction so I just installed a translation extension in Firefox and it seems to work really well. I haven't been able to get an account so I haven't tried to communicate yet, but I'd probably just use Google translate and write in English and then add the translation.
- The thing I learned about China when I was on Twitter years ago is that it's how visible you are about it. There's a code of conduct that lets you say and do the thing even if you should get in real trouble for it. I followed a Chinese lesbian who was big in the 3d printing world, and she talked about how there's lesbian bars and her girlfriend, but she's married to a man in the same way that they used to do here in western countries. They call them a Face, and they're guys who are either gay or have some other arrangement with a lesbian so they can both satisfy the cultural/legal marriage expectations while living their own lives.
  Not to say that it's all sunshine and rainbows over there. It's still pretty dystopian. She also talked about how she had been grabbed by the police, black bagged and thrown in an unmarked van to be held and interrogated multiple times. They couldnt do more than that, though, because she was really untouchable despite being open about a lesbian because of her popularity on Twitter. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Western nations before the 80s or so when things like Don't Ask, Don't Tell were more codified in law.
  Edit: I think I got my terms wrong and the guy is called a Beard, not a Face. Like you'd wear a fake beard to hide your face or something, I think.
- I think they're going to relax a lot of the rules just like TikTok did.
  It's just happened so fast they couldn't adjust in time.
  Give it a week or two and they'll completely separate the US and Chinese userbases, with different standards for each.
  
  This app was never meant for the non-chinese audience. If they want to make a foreign alternative they'd have to segregate it like TikTok vs Douyin and ban the foreign version in the mainland. If that's the case the nice cultrual exchange moments wouldn't happen anymore.
  
  IDK I read somewhere that some Chinese communications authority said that there was no plan to do that and they welcomed the interaction between people. To just be respectful and whatever.
  But then again this is the Internet and we all know the famous quote:
  "Don't trust everything you read on the internet" -Abe Lincoln

"RedNote: No squares, gays or skin"

It's ironic to resist US government censorship by using an app regulated by a far more censorious government, but in this case the irony is appropriate.
People have the right to choose what information they expose themselves to - even if that information really is foreign propaganda. The US government can advise but it must not compel. Its credibility is now so low that most Americans won't heed its advice, and that's one symptom of a much larger and very serious problem with American democracy. Censorship makes that problem worse.
- It's ironic to resist US government censorship
  Censorship is for ideas. Nothing is being censored.
  If your free speech is deathmetal at 5am through a giant 1000W speaker, you're not being censored.
  
  What do you mean? There are ideas being expressed on TikTok. The US government is about to prevent Americans from choosing to see those ideas. Even Chinese propaganda is an idea.
  Time, place, and manner restrictions allow bans on making noise at night but aren't applicable here because no one is exposed to TikTok involuntarily. Time, place, and manner restrictions don't allow restricting some ideas but not others, and again even Chinese propaganda is an idea.

How people knew about RedNote at the start of that wave? In ads, by influencers, in the news? Idk because I'm not in the US, but I suspect something more than a word of a mouth. Especially if TikTok itself was (was it?) a source to know about it's contender that is mostly in chinese lol.
It looks like PRC gvmt and corpos play hydra.

Jesus christ world news is just a CIA liberal hell hole
- Bye tankie

The propaganda machine really is working overtime on this one.

48 comments