What is Rednote? The Tiktok option takes the United States by storm

Shanghai, China – With Tiktok Thousands of users, who are likely to be banned in the United States on Sunday, flock to Chinese social media apps in protest. Here’s what you need to know.

During the days leading up to a proposed US government ban on the social media platform TikTok, US users have turned to another Chinese owned app, Xiaohongshu – otherwise known as Rednote.

The United States adopted a law last year that forced the popular video platform’s change of ownership to either sell it or turn off it by January 19. It has since been questioned in the high court, but are likely to be supported and enforced.

With the deadline that Truar, Rednote has been driven to the top of the US Apple App Store free download table, and #tiktokrefugee has had more than 290 million views from dinner on Wednesday.

Rednote is a short-shaped video app for social media launched in Shanghai 2013 by Charlwin Mao and Miranda Qu. In Chinese it is called Xiaohongshu, which translates to “Little Red Book.”

There is speculation that this name may be a reference to Mao Zedong’s quotation book, which goes by the same name, but this has not been confirmed. The term “rednote” is not an official name.

In an interview with the research agency Shenixing, Xiaohongshu gave founder Mao his own explanation for the app’s name and said that its “primary color theme is red, so we decided to call the” little red book “.”

The app is popular in China, especially among young women, but with about 300 million active users every month since 2023, does not have anywhere close to the traction and range for something like Weibo.

Unlike Tiktok’s sister app Douyin or Microblogging Site Weibo, Rednote leans heavily against apolitical content such as lifestyle, travel, beauty and food substances.

Page Explore is similar to TikToks for your site – both curates by an algorithm that suggests content based on user interests and interactions.

It is also an online market similar to TikTok Shop, where users can directly buy items including clothes, makeup and accessories.

It is seen as relatively less censored than other platforms: users can be found that publish LGBTQ+ content and discuss the benefits of women who remain single, topics that are often considered sensitive in China.

Xiaohongshu has also popularized “check -in” tourism, where travelers are planning travel plans around scenic or trendy places specifically to take pictures for social media.

And like Instagram and Tiktok, the platform has also become a hub for influencers that support sponsored products.

Xiaohongshu was never intended to meet an American audience and as a result there is no quality of life or US-directed moderation.

Rednote does not have an English alternative yet, as it was never intended to be provided to an American audience. It also has no auto-translate tools.

In addition, Rednote has no content system or even an algorithm that can be used for American users.

As a result, “Tiktok Nomads” uses an app that is entirely in the Chinese language and curates for Chinese. For example, the products that are marketed are mostly only sent into China.

Although it is considered moderately less censored than other Chinese platforms, it is probably still monitored by Beijing with a ban on certain words.

In public group chats on the platform, new American users have asked for translations of hose terms, as well as keywords for searching for content they wanted.