What’s happening to TikTok now? The app is expected to be banned in the United States next Sunday, when the Protecting Americans from Controlled Apps by Foreign Adversaries Act is set to take effect. But several possible events could save it — a last-minute sale, a surprise Supreme Court decision, or intervention from the Biden administration. Last night, an official told NBC News that they were "exploring options" to prevent the ban from taking effect. "Americans should not expect TikTok to be suddenly banned on Sunday," the official said on condition of anonymity. But then, today, Bloomberg According to reports, the government will no intervened on behalf of the app, citing two anonymous officials with knowledge of the scheme. Who knows! President-elect Donald Trump has also reportedly expressed a desire to save the app if all else fails.
If TikTok is really banned or shut down directly by its parent company, it will be a seismic event in the history of the Internet. At least one-third of U.S. adults and a majority of U.S. teens use the app, according to the Pew Research Center. Over the past few days, these users have accepted the app's possible demise and lashed out as much as they wanted.
Some posted satirical videos in which they bid farewell to supposed Chinese spies, pretending they were sent to spy on them and modify recommendation algorithms on their behalf. More people maliciously downloaded another Chinese app called Xiaohongshu, which is called RedNote in English and functions like a cross between TikTok and Instagram. It has shot to the top of the App Store charts, with more than 700,000 new users joining in just two days, according to Reuters.
I downloaded it myself earlier this week to see what happened — most of my content was quickly filled with videos tagged #TikTokRefugee. Users in both the U.S. and China seemed to revel in the brief moment of absurd cultural exchange. I've seen a lot of weird content glorifying Luigi Mangione (the man accused of assassinating UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson), and so far, this seems to be a common experience on the app. Most of the text on RedNote is in Mandarin. This has become the subject of more jokes, as well as a marketing opportunity for language learning app Duolingo (which has reportedly seen a surge in new Mandarin learners).
RedNote is not particularly useful for English speakers. Since its ownership belongs to China, it seems likely that it will also be subject to the same legislation that is (currently) designed to kill TikTok. The deluge of downloads, then, is driven less by practicality than by a mixture of curiosity, pettiness, and that half-snobbish, half-sincere rebellion that's so common online. A viral post claiming “not only am I willing to hand over my data to China, but I’m also willing to give my heart selflessly,” is clearly a joke. But other users who posted on TikTok about switching to RedNote told me they were taking it seriously and sincerely viewed the upcoming TikTok ban as a free speech issue.
Mia DeLuca, a 24-year-old TikTok user from New Jersey who joined RedNote, told me she believed the app’s popularity was an intentional message to U.S. lawmakers — “This is our A way to stand your ground. Abby Greer, a 27-year-old from Chicago, told me that she knew social media platforms derived value from user data, and she specifically wanted to give her data “to those who have the most. People who upset Congress."
In banning TikTok (unless its Chinese owner ByteDance sells it to an American company), Congress cited concerns about national security and Chinese propaganda. Critics of the ban argue that national security concerns are vague, that such a ban would be legally dubious under the First Amendment, and that politicians’ motives for wanting young Americans to stay away from the uber-popular app are disingenuous — —They They just took the opportunity to make a clumsy move to limit social media use.
Britton Copeland, a 26-year-old full-time content creator from Nashville, told me that downloading RedNote instead of the U.S.-owned app was a sign of defiance against what she saw as government overreach. She said TikTok "is being singled out because it's a platform that allows us to speak freely without control." She's optimistic that seeing RedNote top the App Store charts could force Congress to vote in favor of a handful of Democrats introduced a bill that would delay the ban for 270 days. (As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested earlier today, this appears to be a lost cause.) "I hope this is a wake-up call for our generation to take censorship very seriously, that we There will be a way to make our voices heard," she told me.
This is where things get a little complicated and ridiculous. Most Americans who download RedNote probably don't even know about its content policies yesbecause they are also in Mandarin. These terms of service appear to be highly restrictive, as TikTok has previously faced intense pressure to strictly adhere to AOL's speech codes, and has been criticized the most for removing or minimizing a wide range of content that discusses LGBTQ issues and experiences. New users of RedNote have noticed similar deletions, and reporters have noted that political content on the app is heavily censored.
Of course, it seems more logical for Americans to turn to Instagram Reels, the short-form video product created by Meta to compete with TikTok. Many people do. But some TikTok users I spoke to expressed dissatisfaction with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself. One mentioned his public statements about the possible dangers of TikTok. (In a 2019 speech, in which he singled out TikTok just as it was growing in popularity in the United States, he cited social media apps exported from China as one of the biggest threats to free speech globally.) Another Meta's indirect lobbying efforts were mentioned, which may affect TikTok's development. Contributed to the passage of the anti-TikTok bill. Kris Drew, a 27-year-old TikTok user from Texas, told me: “After knowing that Meta lobbied for this bill to be passed, I wanted to completely disengage from their app.” Greer even said Disdainful. "I won't touch Instagram," she said. Of Zuckerberg, she added, "The last thing I want to do is satisfy him."
RedNote’s proliferation aside, TikTok’s rapidly approaching deadline represents the end of an era of online life, and a strange time for many people — even those who don’t consider themselves avid users. The ban is deeply unpopular, and has become even more unpopular among a variety of Americans over the past two years. Even though TikTok is known as a Gen Z app, tens of millions of other Americans still use TikTok; many have developed a wonderful connection with it since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when they first turned to it for entertainment and contact with the outside world. (written in Book Forumauthor Charlotte Shane describes the app as "providing an invaluable source of comfort in a time of infinite uncertainty.")
Platform exodus is usually voluntary. Take the waves of #DeleteFacebook campaigns that kicked off during Trump’s first administration, for example, or reports of large numbers of users leaving Elon Musk’s X. This exodus also goes through phases. Before Meta launched Threads in the summer of 2023, the first focus was on Mastodon, but now that Meta has followed Musk's lead and removed its content moderation policy, many people find Bluesky more meaningful. Although it is often the case that a platform becomes unfriendly to a large portion of its user base for various business reasons (Tumblr was wiped out in 2018) or political reasons (Livejournal was wiped out in 2017), overnight Disappearances are relatively rare. The most famous example is the short-video app Vine, but for a platform of TikTok's scale and economic importance, this has never happened.
It's a unique situation, and people respond to it with a unique sense of stylized strangeness. Every time I check my X feed I see another viral piece of gallows humor about the whole thing. For example: "If the government bans RedNote, I will start printing out my browser history every night before going to bed and delivering it to the Chinese consulate on my way to work the next morning." This post has received 118,000 likes. And it’s still increasing.