TikTok To Be Banned: US Users in US Flock to ‘China’s Instagram’

By Staff, Agencies

As a TikTok ban looms in the United States, young Americans are flocking to the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu as “TikTok refugees” in search of a similar experience.

The app has risen to the top spot on the iOS and Google Play stores in the US in recent days as users prepare for TikTok to be banned on national security grounds from Sunday unless Chinese parent company ByteDance divests its ownership.

Chinese lifestyle app Lemon8, which is also owned by ByteDance, has ranked as the second most downloaded app.

Xiaohongshu, which has been described as China’s answer to Instagram, allows users to post photos, videos and text and is known for its female-heavy user base.

While boasting about 300 million monthly active users, Xiaohongshu’s reach is smaller than that of other popular apps in China, such as Sina Weibo and WeChat, which claim 1.2 billion-plus users.

A surge in new users, some of them describing themselves as “TikTok refugees,” is now flooding the app’s “Discover” page with videos seeking tips on how to use “RedNote,” the app’s new nickname in the US.

Chinese media outlet PConline on Tuesday reported that Xiaohongshu employees have been instructed to “not discuss, not promote, and not share” news about their new US user base, citing sources within the company.

“This wave of traffic has become the sword of Damocles hanging over Xiaohongshu’s head. In fact, for Xiaohongshu, which inexplicably received this traffic, the risks far outweigh the opportunities,” the report said.

Those potential risks include regulatory complications.

Chinese social media platforms typically require users to register with a Chinese phone number, while content is subject to government censorship.

For this reason, Chinese tech companies often create domestic and foreign versions of their apps, said Yiwen Lu, a researcher at ChinaTalk, a newsletter and podcast focusing on Chinese technology.

TikTok is an international version of Douyin, while Lemon8 was specifically designed by ByteDance for the foreign market.