At least as of this writing, we're still awaiting the Supreme Court's ruling on TikTok's future, but users of the app aren't waiting to find out what will happen.
Over the past few days, TikTok alternatives like Clapper, Flip, and TikTok's own Lemon8 have climbed to the top of the app store charts. Among them, the most popular Xiaohongshu has left the deepest impression on more than 700,000 new users.
The exodus—which was prompted by a ban attempt out of sheer malice—demonstrates how futile more than five years of efforts to protect Americans from “dangerous” apps have been. In fact, such efforts appear to make things worse for those in power.
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The U.S. government has repeatedly stated that the main goal of banning TikTok has always been to protect American users from Chinese propaganda and protect their data.
I think it's fair to say that the government screwed up, and that's not surprising. Very happy.
In just a few days, Xiaohongshu turned China-U.S. relations upside down. The app was founded in 2013 and functions like a Chinese version of Instagram. Not only are Americans consuming videos and images on an app that proactively censors Tiananmen Square-related content and doesn’t show any content when searching for “Xi Jinping,” but they are also vindictively consenting to the app tracking their data. Overall, the results were opposite to what the U.S. intelligence community expected.
Many Americans also offered suggestions on how to better integrate with Xiaohongshu’s predominantly Chinese user base. A TikTok user posted a video this week asking new U.S. users to "stop talking about democracy" on the app. "If you are Taiwanese," she said, "and you are on Xiaohongshu, you are now Chinese. Sorry." I couldn't find any criticism in her comments section. In fact, many users thanked her for the tip.
If anything, the attempt to ban TikTok has sparked more interest in China among Americans. A large number of TikTok users learn Mandarin by chatting with Chinese Xiaohongshu users or downloading language learning apps such as Duolingo.
“Start learning on Duolingo and learn from the creators of Red Note (or Little Red Book),” one TikTok user wrote to me. "Even added a Chinese keyboard option on my phone."
“Downloaded Red Note this morning and took my first Duolingo Chinese class😂,” another netizen said.
"Oh, so you're learning Mandarin now," Duolingo's X account responded to the growing interest on Tuesday.
Duolingo spokesperson Monica Earle told Wired magazine that the number of new Duolingo users signing up to learn Chinese increased by 216%. When someone signed up for a Duolingo account, they were asked to fill out a survey explaining how they found the app, and the company observed a "corresponding surge" in the number of users who selected "TikTok" as the reason for joining Duolingo.