Chinese social media app RedNote, known in China as Xiaohongshu, gained nearly 3 million U.S. users in one day earlier this week as a flood of self-proclaimed “TikTok Refugees” joined, according to new data from analytics firm Similarweb.
The Chinese-language app had about 3.4 million daily active users across both iOS and Android devices in the United States as of Monday, up from fewer than 700,000 the day prior, and around 300,000 the week prior, according to the Similarweb estimate.
The influx of users has been driven by a looming U.S. ban on TikTok, used by 170 million Americans, on national security concerns.
The data suggests an even larger shift to RedNote by U.S. users this week than was previously known, explaining its dramatic rise to the top of U.S. app store download rankings. Reuters reported on Tuesday that more than 700,000 new users had joined the app in only two days.
Meanwhile, U.S. usage of TikTok declined ahead of the ban, down 2.1% week over week to about 82.2 million daily active users, Similarweb said.
Despite China history with the Uyghurs, child labor, and many other human rights violations and completely ignoring the fact that the people of China have a mile long list of apps they’re not allowed to download and a longer list of things they’re not allowed to speak about. These people sure know how to signal.
There’s more child labor, both legal and illegal, in the United States than in all of China.
That’s debatable but either way doesn’t make it right. It’s like everyone has decided they’ll join the #1 oppressor of free speech in order to protest their own loss of free speech? I don’t see how that makes any sense. If rednote becomes popular enough it will be covered by the same act that is allowing the ban of tictok. If people want to protest American companies then they should stop using them, and I mean completely. Nothing will speak louder than a missing user base.
Repression of hate speech is objectively a good thing. “Free speech” in our society is a dog whistle for allowing far right to spread conspiracy and lies without any repercussions. Western media heavily suppresses speech that cuts against their interests. Say “free luigi” on Facebook or instagram and see what happens. Say “free Palestine” on instagram and see what happens. Yet, literal fascists are allowed to (and even further spread by people like musk) to spread antisemitic conspiracies and objectively false and misleading pseudoscience without issue. Hundreds of left leaning journalists were banned on X in one day, for nothing more than being ideologically opposite to Elon Musk.
Put simply, the illusion of “freedom of speech” in the west is just that, an illusion. China does not suppress the majority of speech, they just don’t allow ideologues to sew conflict and falsehoods.
That is factually not true and you should feel bad for making that sentence.
