New customers have piled into Chinese language social media app RedNote simply days earlier than a proposed US ban on the favored social media app TikTok, because the lesser-known firm rushes to capitalise on the sudden inflow whereas strolling a fragile line of moderating English-language content material.
In a stay chat dubbed “TikTok Refugees” on RedNote on Monday, greater than 50 000 American and Chinese language customers joined the room. Veteran Chinese language customers, with some sense of bewilderment, welcomed their American counterparts and swapped notes with them on subjects comparable to meals and youth unemployment.
Sometimes, nonetheless, the People veered into riskier territory. “Is it alright to ask about how legal guidelines are completely different in China versus Hong Kong?” one American consumer requested. “We favor to not discuss that right here,” a Chinese language consumer responded.
Such impromptu cultural exchanges have been going down all throughout RedNote, identified in China as Xiaohongshu, because the app surged to the highest of US obtain rankings this week. Its recognition was pushed by American social media customers casting about for a substitute for ByteDance-owned TikTok days forward of its looming ban.
In solely two days, greater than 700 000 new customers joined Xiaohongshu, an individual near the corporate mentioned. Xiaohongshu didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
US downloads of RedNote have been up greater than 200% yr over yr this week, and 194% from the week prior, based on estimates from app information analysis agency Sensor Tower.
The second most-popular free app on Apple’s App Retailer checklist on Tuesday, Lemon8, one other social media app owned by ByteDance, skilled the same surge final month, with downloads leaping by 190% in December to about 3.4 million.
Inflow
The inflow appeared to catch RedNote unexpectedly, with two sources aware of the corporate saying they have been scrambling to search out methods to average English-language content material and construct English-Chinese language translation instruments.
RedNote maintains just one model of its app, moderately than splitting it into abroad and home apps — a rarity amongst Chinese language social apps which are topic to home moderation guidelines. Nonetheless, the corporate is eager to mine the sudden rush of consideration, as executives see it as a possible path to realize international recognition just like TikTok’s.
RedNote, a enterprise capital-backed start-up with a most up-to-date valuation of US$17-billion, permits customers to curate images, movies and textual content documenting their lives. It has been considered as a attainable IPO candidate in China.
Learn: China mulls possibility of promoting TikTok US to Elon Musk
In recent times, it has develop into a de facto search engine for its 300 million-plus customers searching for journey suggestions, anti-aging lotions and restaurant suggestions.
The share costs of some China-listed corporations that conduct companies with RedNote, comparable to Hangzhou Onechance Tech, surged as a lot as 20% on Tuesday, hitting the every day restrict. The spike in US customers comes forward of a 19 January deadline for ByteDance to promote TikTok or face a ban within the US on nationwide safety grounds.
TikTok is at the moment utilized by about 170 million People, roughly half of the nation’s inhabitants, and is overwhelmingly fashionable with younger folks and the advertisers trying to attain them.
“People utilizing Rednote looks like a cheeky center finger to the US authorities for its overreach into companies and privateness issues,” mentioned Stella Kittrell, 29, a content material creator based mostly in Baltimore, Maryland. She mentioned she joined RedNote in hopes of additional collaborations with Chinese language corporations, which she discovered useful.
Some customers mentioned they joined the platform to hunt options to Meta Platforms-owned Fb and Instagram, and to Elon Musk’s X. Some expressed doubt that they may rebuild their TikTok follower base on these apps.
Learn: TikTok proprietor ByteDance is now greater than Tencent
“It’s not the identical: Instagram, X or every other app,” mentioned Brian Atabansi, 29, a enterprise analyst and content material creator based mostly in San Diego, California, “primarily due to how natural it’s to construct group on TikTok.” — Katie Paul, Krystal Hu, Doyinsola Oladipo and Eduardo Baptista, with Sophie Yu, (c) 2025 Reuters
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