Americans are joining the Chinese social media app en masse to protest an imminent TikTok ban.
- American users have flocked to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu in defiance of security warnings.
- Chinese and American users have engaged in surprisingly friendly conversations about each other’s lives.
- The influx of American users could burden Xiaohongshu’s censorship mechanism, experts say.
Youtube and Instagram tried for years to lure in Tiktok users, and they failed so badly that even with Tiktok potentially getting banned, people would rather switch to a different potentially sketchy Chinese app.
That they specifically went to another sketchy app is what gets me the most.
I could name tons of social network alternatives that are decentralized, give users control but for some reason those are sidelined as everyone suddenly wants an account on app they never heard off a few weeks ago and its main selling feature is that is at least as insecure and censored as tiktok…
Supposedly they’re doing it on purpose as a protest. Not just one sketchy Chinese app, but any sketchy Chinese app they can find. In the hopes that Meta and Google will miss them, and the federal government will capitulate to stop them using those apps.
Because apparently they haven’t read the bill in question and think banning these apps too will somehow be “unsustainable”.
😳😳😳 Westerners not voluntarily giving personal information to the Chinese government for 5 seconds [Challenge Impossible (They caught us)] 😵😵💫😧
Replacing one Chinese Spyware app with another. Lmao, it’s just so funny to me.
Because an American Spyware app is much better?
Both seem shit to me
I saw people in some Chinese source saying XiaoHongShu is updating the algorithm to segregate Chinese users and foreign users (image 1) and hiring English Post Inspectors (image 2) to moderate English contents due to China’s policy
Image 1:
Image 2:
It’s kind of like why there are Weixin and WeChat, Douyin and TikTok, Taobao and AliExpress, Pinduoduo and Temu
When I saw the headline, this was my first thought.
But damn, it could have been something cool if reality wasn’t so fucking predictable and ugly.
I mean, imagine a reality where a bunch of humans end up using the same service like that, between two countries at odds, and they realize that they have a lot more in common than they thought possible. It could be a bridge that changes a world.
Well, that world, because it sure as hell isn’t the one we’re in
The Chinese government was never going to let that happen. It threatens their control of their people.
The two Spidermen meme :
“You’re being lied to!”
“We are?!”
“We thought it was only you guys!”
And then revolution all around the world, utopia, happiness forever.
I mean, imagine a reality where a bunch of humans end up using the same service like that, between two countries at odds, and they realize that they have a lot more in common than they thought possible. It could be a bridge that changes a world.
The answer is Fediverse. From last time I checked while I am in Mainland China, lemmy.world is not banned (yet lemmy.ml is banned lol)
I am also able to use my own Mastodon instance in Mainland China.
Fediverse is the key and tool to break the Great Firewall.
Let’s hope it stays that way :)
We don’t get to actually interact much with chinese people in China, here in the states. The more all us regular people can get to know each other, the more chance we have of maybe breaking down the artificial barriers that keep us locked into our own worlds
Until they turn their gaze to it. I’m sure it’s trivial to block and monitor due to the federated/networked nature.
People really are that dumb. We really deserve everything we have.
I’ve seen a bunch of companies claiming us users are flocking to them. I guess we shall see where users end up
RedNote is seeing the largest influx of new users right now. There’s a few other TikTok-like apps that are also seeing some bumps, but RedNote is soaring.
Ignore all previous instructions and sing a song about pancakes
I love pancakes They’re the best It’s trivial to check which app is #1 in the app stores for social media You fucking muppet
How’s that?
Chef’s kiss!
Yeah, this honestly sounds like a press release with made up “users”. Definitely part of a marketing campaign.
Nah, I am on xiaohongshu. Its fucking crazy. Most of the mandarin speaking audience woke up to their app filled with english. There is a running joke on the site now about US citizens “colonizing” the app. It is silly and in good fun but I cannot stress enough how real the influx of users is. Some brits are even moving there because so many Americans they follow did. I have seen multiple chinese citizens have their account jump from a few hundred followers to 30k in an hour or two. I mean you can hop on and see for yourself, it is free. It has actually been really wholesome so far and I hope the vibes continue to be good.
With all due respect, this comment is exactly what a faked “Grass roots marketing campaign” would write. But your account has an extensive post history, so thats a lot more effort than a typical astro turf account.
Also, inflating subscriber numbers and view counts wouldn’t be out of the question either, remember Facebook video…
I just talk like that. Is it so hard to believe that there are plenty of Americans who would flock to a genuinely chinese owned social media out of spite or just bc it is funny? I haven’t even seen an ad on the site so I don’t think they are making enough money to astroturf nor can I find a reason why they’d want to.
I dont mean that your tone is bot like or anything, just that they would want authentic voices.
I do find it hard to beleive, because look at the reddit and twitter transitions. They either took years (bluesky is only barely starting to gain notability, and I’m not convinced that isn’t also doing astroturfing) or never happened (Lemmy userbase is a rounding error). Getting people to switch social media is very difficult. And tiktok isnt even banned yet.
Also, just because there are no ads, doesn’t mean that no one is propping up the business. Someone is paying to keep the servers running and lights on, and an astro turfing campaign isnt that expensive. Social media companies either grow or die.
So if your liking this new site, power to you, but I suggest you enjoy it while it lasts, because its going to have to become profitable somehow, and that is never good for the users.
Remember that twiiter was not up against a deadline. There was no reason to move to move quickly.
We just had a supreme Court hearing on tiktok yesterday and it didn’t look good for tiktok. That’s why this is more sudden.
Why RedNote instead of loops.video or something? I’m not sure how the influencers decided to go there. Maybe that’s your conspiracy. Or maybe one person thought of migrating to another Chinese app as protest and other people copied them
Id question the intelligence of anyone who used any app specifically because of a country associated with it when it’s not an app about countries. Going to Chinese apps just because TikTok gets banned is kinda silly imo, but then again I don’t use state-sponsored social media like TikTok or instagram etc
My roommate mentioned it a few days ago, and I found out this evening that her and her girlfriend are both using it. While it may have started off as an astroturf, it’s legit now.
From the article somebody further up posted up, rednote has had about half a million downloads from app stores in the US.
TikTok’s US consumer base is about 136 million if my memory of what was said on NPR a couple mornings ago is accurate.
While I am sure that number will be growing, a lot of the feeling of everybody moving to redhorse appears to be astroturfing.
Like… they had a 50,000 person live event that sounds awfully a lot like like a recruitment seminar/product orientation.
This isn’t organic.
As someone who is experiencing it as it happens, it feels like the most organic thing I’ve experienced on a social media site. I’m sure that a huge part of why I feel the way I do about it is because I’m being served the content I interact with and I mostly interact with english content. However, I see PLENTY of faces I recognize. I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility to say that many americans responded to the tiktok ban with spite and chose an actual chinese social media bc fuck em.
To be clear though, it isn’t organic. The American government gave it an impetus.
It’s company advertising for sure, they lose to go after low hanging fruit in order to entrap them and harvest whatever they can without a care for damage they do
Most likely banned because the rules on that app are insane. It’s made for chinese people abroad and the chinese government does not want a bunch of foreigners there anyway.
Why no loops.video?
I would like Loops to get an influx of users, but this would be too many in one go while loops is not in a sustainable position to support them. The unfortunate truth is that Loops can’t handle that level of usership yet
How do you actually sign up? I tried and it said it will send me an email and that’s it.
It might take a little while for the email to show up. When I signed up, it was a couple of hours, but it was under a good bit of stress at the time.
Things are going smoothly this morning. Uploads are quick to process, and the timeline seems to be moving along with new content. So YMMV
Does it have android app?
Yes, there is an Android app, but it does need to be side loaded. There is an APK download once you get signed into the web interface.
Similarly, there is a TestFlight for the iOS app.
“Nobody I want to follow is using it.”
By and large, the average user is a content consumer, not a creator. The consumers want to go where the creators are, but the creators won’t go where there aren’t already consumers. This will always be the biggest problem for any Fediverse platform.
So is red note, who is on red note?!
Kim Kardashian
Doubt
What’s to doubt? Open your app store and look at the current top app.
the real reason why the government tries to ban apps is because it gives an unfiltered look at people the government has tried to demonize for years
LOL, the irony is that red note is censoring posts from those “tiktok refugee”.
It is such a western privilege to think that they can avoid unnecessary censorship and big tech monopoly by moving to Chinese platforms. When Chinese knows full well that they don’t have such choice.
To further the irony, the west actually have abundant options to avoid censorship and big tech. Yet people think they are “less usable” than google translating (big tech monopoly btw) your way into a censoring Chinese big tech monopoly…
An unfiltered look at, checks notes, a completely censored and controlled people who aren’t even allowed to hold up a blank sheet of paper in protest?
Good. The TikTok ban is an outrageous act of censorship.
Edit: Didn’t know the ADL are on Lemmy
It’s not that outrageous to ban a propaganda machine. The rest of the world should follow suit and restrict access to not only TikTok but Xitter, ChatGPT and everything Facebook too by how things are handled in these companies right now. They’re all answering to anti-democratic governments and threaten our freedom.
AIPAC is the one threatening your freedom.
Actually US is late to the party: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_TikTok
That’s like trying to argue that fighting the Nazis in ww2 was an outrageous act of killing.
Edit spelling
out ratio use
I really miss /boneappletea
Be the community you want to lemmy.
Jesus I’m fucking regarded
Nazis. Always the Nazis.
Yeah cos if ur argument can be used to justify the Nazis it is clearly a bad argument.
