As a TikTok ban in the US approaches, creators are flocking to Chinese social media app RedNote to start over and, in some cases, show off their skills. contempt To the United States government.

The rise is also fueled by reports that ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, may do so He sells TikTok by owner X Elon Musk.

Despite its basic Chinese interface, RedNote's popularity has skyrocketed.

It is now the number one app on the Apple App Store and second on Google Play, after Lemon8, another ByteDance product. Currently, more than 60,000 posts on RedNote have the hashtag #TikTokRefugee.

On Sunday, TikTok will be shut down, marking the first time the US government has banned a major social media app. Instead of allowing users who have downloaded the app to continue using it, TikTok will redirect users to a website with information about the ban.

Questions remain about whether RedNote can amass TikTok's 1.5 billion monthly active users and whether the US government will have a TikTok alternative in its crosshairs.

According to Randy Nelson, head of insights and media relations at analytics firm AppFigures, RedNote's newfound popularity is another sign of TikTok's power and the app's ability to make another app go viral.

“We are seeing this happening with an obscure app in the West that is ultimately not a direct alternative to TikTok, with a large Chinese user base, and the evidence suggests that TikTok ‘refugees’ are experiencing this disconnect from the alternative they are using.” “We were anticipating,” Nelson said. Decryption.

“These consumers are moving from an app facing a ban due to its country of origin to another app operating outside of that particular country, which, if its profile rises to the level of TikTok, could face the same fate.”

It was launched in 2013 by Shanghai-based Xingyin Information Technology and is known as Xiaohongshu – the Little Red Book in English – in reference to the book of quotations by People's Republic of China founder Chairman Mao Zedong.

RedNote focuses on lifestyle content and product features, which contrasts with TikTok's focus on entertainment.

The app has been downloaded more than 3.4 million times in the United States since January 1, 2017, across both the App Store and Google Play, according to data from AppFigures.

The data includes about 1.1 million downloads in 2024 alone, representing more than a third of all downloads in the United States.

RedNote continued this upward trend through 2025 with 260,000 downloads, compared to 30,000 downloads in January 2024, an increase of 867%, AppFigures data shows. As of January 2025, RedNote has more than 300 million monthly active users, mostly in China, Taiwan, and Malaysia.

Growing user numbers in the United States have prompted content creators to add English or Chinese subtitles to videos.

Getting started with RedNote

The first thing new users will notice is that RedNote's interface is a mix of Chinese and English. Although many of the app screens are in Chinese, making navigation difficult for non-Chinese speakers, the signup process is easy and straightforward.

On iPhones, users can sign up using their phone number or Apple ID. RedNote also has a Desktop Version plus iOS and Android. Once registered, users can set English as the default language, although some features may still display text in both languages.

Reaction to RedNote's sudden rise in popularity in the United States has been mixed.

“If you install 小红书 (RedNote) for fear of being banned from TikTok, you will immediately turn into an NPC,” the decentralized social media platform accounted for. Minds He wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Why is RedNote so popular?

RedNote's rapid rise in the US may seem counterintuitive, but according to experts like a University of Southern California communications professor Karen NorthThis trend is not as grassroots as social media would have us believe.

“I don't think RedNote just came out of the blue,” North said. Decryption In an interview. “I think RedNote is being promoted. TikTok is basically promoting this campaign, but this doesn't make sense as a protest against the US government's attack on TikTok because it's Chinese.

North is a clinical professor and founder of the USC Annenberg Digital Social Media Program. During the Clinton administration, she worked in the White House Office of Science and Technology.

“The idea that there is bipartisan support for an unpopular action right before an election should signal that elected officials know something dangerous, and we should stop and think or be open about why,” North said.

On April 23 of last year, Congress Pass Protecting Americans from Censored Apps from Foreign Adversaries Act, which requires TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, to sell its US operations by January 19, 2025.

US President Joe Biden signed the legislation into law, including a provision providing a three-month extension if the sale is not completed by the deadline.

PAFACA targets not only TikTok but also foreign-owned apps that U.S. policymakers say pose national security risks, particularly those affiliated with Chinese companies.

Privacy and social media

North noted that people in the United States have become increasingly unconcerned with personal privacy, often saying it does not exist. However, she emphasized that privacy laws vary greatly from country to country; “It's their country, it's their laws,” she said, highlighting the discrepancy between privacy regulations in the United States and those abroad.

Despite this growing public apathy, governments around the world have banned Chinese social media apps. In 2023, several countries, including the United States, the European Union, Canada and Taiwan, will begin... Forbidden Using TikTok on government devices. Taiwan had already banned RedNotee in 2022 due to national security concerns.

“In the European Union, privacy laws are more stringent. In China, individual users don't have privacy. Data can be collected and stored individually, and that's how their governments operate. But it's generally not OK with most of us,” North said.

“When people say privacy no longer exists, they think in American terms. We need to think country-by-country when we download apps that are governed by laws other places,” she said.

Modified by Sebastian Sinclair and Josh Quitner