It's called RedNote, and it's not easy for non-Chinese speakers to use.

Dude, am I the only one who feels like a grandpa on this app?

I don't know what the heck's going on or how to use it.

Can someone tell?

And yet, in a live chat room viewed by 26,000 American and Chinese users, there they are, users introducing themselves as TikTok refugees being welcomed with open arms.

Nobody actually expects this to happen.

Is it crazy to you guys?

I'm kind of scared.

Wait, isn't it weird though?

Because they were trying to ban it because they were like scared of Chinese, like the communist sh**.

And then we just come to a Chinese app.

The best thing that could have ever happened.

Is everyone just coming over from America?

Yeah.

Yeah, we in here.

Why are Americans flooding it?

In Mandarin Chinese, the app is called Xiaohongshu, meaning Little Red Book.

The industry has more recently started calling it RedNote.

The software features a recommendation algorithm similar to TikTok with content like Pinterest and a community resembling Reddit.

It's also one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with an estimated 300 million monthly active users, mostly young, highly educated women, according to Chinese social media data provider Tiangua.

Half of them are Gen Z and one in 10 are white collar workers living in big cities.

Based in Shanghai, RedNote took off in 2013.

But why did it take so long for Americans to find their way to the app?

Unlike TikTok, RedNote is designed and developed for Chinese users.

It's in a completely different language, in a completely different country, with completely different rules.

I also downloaded RedNote.

I obviously used the Google Translation to create that account.

But it didn't take a long time.

It was very simple.

It took a few minutes.

But again, if you don't have an English version, going back and forth between Google Translate is going to be very frustrating in the long term.

Despite such barriers, the tide has clearly turned, with over 700,000 new users downloading the app between January 13 and January 15, 2025.

Although the migration to RedNote seemingly happened overnight, it has been a long time coming.

That TikTok poses a problem and an issue.

And so we have concerns about that as it relates to Americans' data, collecting Americans' data and the potential national security risk.

And we've been very, very clear on that.

TikTok boasts more than 170 million users in the U.S., but Washington has expressed fears over its ownership by Chinese internet company ByteDance.

The U.S.

House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill in 2024 to force the app to divest from its Chinese owner or face a ban in the country.

Fear of being suddenly knocked offline has sent TikTokers flocking elsewhere, and experts say RedNote has been immediately affected as a result.

There's been a huge change in what this platform's content looks like.

So a lot of messages are about people introducing themselves.

A lot of content is in English language.

A lot of comments are in English.

A lot of newcomers set goals like, oh, I will learn Chinese and please help me out.

The hashtag TikTok refugee was viewed 370 million times on RedNote in just three days.

How did this happen so quickly?

The post spoke with a TikTok influencer with more than 180,000 followers who joined RedNote.

I'm not shocked because I know some people are just doing it as like a big F you to the American government, which I think is kind of funny in general.

So like I saw a video, I think it had like a million views when I saw about RedNote.

It was already popular in that way.

And then I was like, oh, what is that?

And so I went to go download it and then I played around with it.

And now it's like a trickling event.

But yeah, my intentions weren't like F the government, I'm going to go over there.

I was just like, oh, this is something that everyone's over here.

OK, let me go see what it's talking about.

And then I made an account.

So I was just kind of honest because if they're going to shut this down, it's like, well, where else are we going to go?

As a protest, as a way to primarily spite the government, a lot of TikTok creators and TikTok users decided to enter a real Chinese app.

What do I mean by real?

Because TikTok international version is actually headquartered in Singapore and it has its servers outside of mainland China.

And as the CEO of TikTok Global has mentioned, it's not really a Chinese Chinese company or operation.

And now they're going to Xiaohongshu, Red Book, which is a Chinese company with service in the country, with headquarters in mainland China.

I personally don't watch the news just because, one, the news is like really depressing.

And then plus, like they try to like sway your view on things.

So I'm just kind of sad that TikTok really does go like I'm not going to be in the what's really going on out there.

So, yeah, so I do support the protest because it's really pretty much taking away free speech, in my opinion, because TikTok is really the only app where you can just kind of do and say anything.

Ironically, Americans moving to Red Note will face the same kind of censorship Chinese users face in their home country behind what is called the Great Firewall.

But at the same time, the migration has created a rare opportunity for people in the two to learn more about each other.

We don't eat that.

There's a lot of cultural exchange going on.

So last night I was dumbscrolling, doomscrolling on Red and there were three or four accounts where people were basically saying, ask me anything about America.

I'm just a blue collar worker sitting here in Colorado.

I will tell you anything and everything.

So real Chinese people speak with real American people directly without VPNs.

Without media curation.

But they actually have an opportunity probably for the first time in a long, long time to interact directly.

Beijing so far has signaled that it welcomes cross-cultural interaction.

In China, censorship has been strict for many years and increasingly more so since 2021.

Billions of social media accounts have been shut down.

Chinese companies have created different versions of their services like Douyin for domestic audiences and TikTok for everywhere else.

We have to keep in mind that TikTok US was ruled by US laws, while Red Note is subject to China's internet censorship.

So once the Chinese authorities or the Chinese regulatory bodies, you know, start censoring some of the content that that is not maybe relevant to the Chinese culture or the Chinese authorities feel that it's not, you know, does not suit well for the Chinese audiences or does not follow the Chinese law or the Chinese content regulation, they're going to start cracking down on it.

And the moment those regulatory and legal measures kick in, many experts believe that the Americans may begin to leave.

There's also a possibility that Red Note could be banned in the U.S. for the same reasons as TikTok, raising fear among Chinese users who live outside the mainland.

Red Note has received investment from a number of high-profile technology companies, including Alibaba and Tencent, which are also Chinese.

So I think fast forward a few months, I wouldn't be surprised if Red Note comes under the same scrutiny that TikTok has over the last two years.

But some experts say that move is unlikely.

Given Trump saying that he has a warm spot for TikTok, I don't think the Trump administration or Trump himself would want to make it a priority going after every Chinese app that is widely used in the U.S.

But having said that, there are so many Republicans in Washington who voted for TikTok ban, and they have been talking about this trend of American users migrating to Red Note.

So I think there is a lot of sudden shock at what is happening right now.

It's very unlikely that there will be a ban on Red Note, given there are so many stages to banning anything in the U.S.

And it's still unclear if the law that bans TikTok also applies to other apps like Red Note, which are not owned by ByteDance.

Even if it proves to be just a brief trend, the TikTok refugee migration has brought the people of China and the U.S. closer together in unprecedented ways.

And those connections could remain intact, regardless of which social media platform they end up using.