US ‘TikTok refugees’ are fleeing to Chinese app RedNote. It’s a new phase of digital cold war

By Jian Xu for The Conversation

Melbourne: Social media giant TikTok is preparing to shut down its app in the United States this Sunday – the day that legislation signed by President Joe Biden last year banning the app takes effect.

There is a slim chance this dramatic development might not happen if the US Supreme Court accepts a last-minute legal argument from TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, that the ban is unconstitutional – or if ByteDance divests its US operations.

But the 170 million users of TikTok in the US aren’t taking any chances. Many self-described “TikTok refugees” have begun to flee to alternative social media sites, mocking the alleged security concerns on TikTok in the process. “Goodbye to my Chinese spy” has become a new TikTok trend.

The most popular alternative that has emerged is the Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu (known as RedNote in English). On January 13, the app surged to number one in the US Apple App Store, attracting more than 7,00,000 new users.

This mass digital migration of social media users marks a new phase in the ongoing digital cold war between the US and China. But there are many questions about whether RedNote – or any other alternative platform – will be a viable, long-term refuge for US TikTok users if the ban goes ahead.

What is RedNote?

Owned by Shanghai-based Xingyin Information Technology and established in 2013, RedNote is a Chinese-language lifestyle, social networking and e-commerce platform. It has a hybrid style of Instagram-meets-Pinterest and approximately 300 million monthly active users – the majority of whom are in China.

Understand how AI is changing society RedNote stores its users’ personal data in China, in compliance with China’s data protection and cybersecurity laws and other regulatory policies.

But RedNote isn’t the only alternative platform users are migrating to. Another is Lemon8, also owned by ByteDance, which bills itself as a “lifestyle community”.

First launched in Japan in 2020, it had the second top spot in the Apple App Store – after RedNote – earlier this week. The app allows existing TikTok users to migrate their account handles and data.

Like TikTok, Lemon8 stores data of users outside China, including in the US and Singapore. However, if the US government does ban TikTok it could easily use the same rationale to ban Lemon8.

Other local US-based alternative platforms, such as Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, are not seen as ideal options by many users. This is because they are less creator-friendly and lack a strong sense of community.

Many see RedNote as the best alternative given its similar content style and algorithms to TikTok and community-driven appeal. More importantly, the platform is beyond the control of the US government and cannot be directly banned.

At the time of writing, the hashtag “TikTok refugee” had garnered about 250 million views and over 5.5 million comments on RedNote. Some US users satirically explained their move to the platform out of spite: since the US government is worried about our personal data being taken by China, let’s just hand it directly over to the Chinese government. Are you going to take away my mobile?

A ‘Western awakening movement’

Chinese users of RedNote are enthusiastically embracing TikTok refugees from the US.

For example, they are producing tutorial videos to teach new users how to navigate the app. This hospitality is summed up by one popular comment from a Chinese user on the platform who said: “friends who come over from TikTok, I want to say, you are not refugees, you are brave explorers.” The new migration to RedNote has also intensified national pride of Chinese internet users.

They vividly refer to the migration as a “Western awakening movement”, which allows US citizens to open their eyes to see the world outside the centre of the west.

This phrase was coined in reference to the “self-strengthening movement” in China in the late 19th century – a reform effort aimed at modernising China by adopting Western technologies, knowledge and values.

The unexpected migration has seen some RedNote-related stocks surge by as much as 20 per cent earlier this week.

People-to-people diplomacy The positive interactions between American and Chinese internet users help promote the Communist Party of China’s idea of “people-to-people diplomacy”. This idea is best summed up by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who in July 2024 said: "The hope of the China-US relationship lies in the people, its foundation is in the two societies, its future depends on the youth, and its vitality comes from exchanges at subnational levels." However, RedNote might not be a viable, long-term refuge for US TikTok users.

Their sudden migration to RedNote could be more like a flash mob protest against the TikTok ban. It may not be easy for them to get used to a very different digital ecosystem – and make a decision to permanently reside on the Chinese app.

RedNote has already posted a job ad to urgently recruit content moderators who understand English to cope with the dramatic growth of English-speaking users.

It’s also worth nothing that the migration to RedNote is still very small, and only a fraction of the 170 million people in the US who use TikTok.

The US government also has the authority to pressure Apple to remove RedNote from the US App Store if it thinks the migration poses a national security threat.

Regardless of whether this happens, the mass migration of TikTok refugees to RedNote – even if it is temporary – shows the US’s regulation of digital technologies, driven by geopolitical competition, has significantly fractured the global internet.

Fortunately, we have witnessed the spirit of optimism and humanitarianism among US and Chinese internet users amid the tension of the digital cold war.

(Jian Xu is an Associate Professor in Communication, Deakin University.)