Americans, Chinese share jokes about ‘alternative TikTok’ as US ban looms

The TikTok ban has brought Chinese and American citizens together like never before, exchanging jokes and memes in what one user described as a “historic moment.”

It’s all unfolding on a popular social media app called RedNote or Xiaohongshu (literally translates as Little Red Book), which doesn’t have the usual internet firewalls that separate China from the rest of the world.

Drawing has been self-professed US “TikTok Refugees” Looking for a new home on the internet – despite its government seeking to ban TikTok due to national security concerns.

Americans now find themselves in direct contact with 300 million Mandarin speakers in China and elsewhere; in the real world, Beijing, meanwhile, is preparing for a troubled Trump presidency that could strain its fragile ties with Washington.

At the heart of the US ban is the fear that China is using TikTok to spy on Americans.

The app has alleged that user data is ending up in the hands of the Chinese government as a result of a Beijing law that requires local companies to “assist, support and cooperate with state intelligence work”. TikTok denies that this ever happened or would happen.

But the prospect doesn’t seem to worry some US users – 700,000 new users signed up to RedNote in the past two days, making it the most downloaded free app in the US app store.

“The reason our government is telling us they’re banning TikTok is because you Chinese insist the government owns whatever,” said a new RedNote user, Definitelynotchippy.

He goes on to explain why he’s on RedNote: “Many of us are smarter than that, so we decided to piss off our government and download the real Chinese app. We call it trolling, so in short, we’re here to piss off our government and learn about China and to walk with you.”

TikTok, although owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is headquartered in Singapore and claims to be independently run. In fact, the Chinese version of TikTok is another app called Douyin. RedNote, on the other hand, is a Chinese company based in Shanghai and is one of the few social media apps in and outside of China.

So Washington’s fears of TikTok would extend to RedNote as well.

That’s why American users of RedNote are being referred to as “Chinese spies” – continuing a trend on TikTok where people are saying goodbye to the “personal Chinese spies” they’ve allegedly watched over the years.

RedNote is now full of posts from former TikTok users looking for a replacement. One post reads: “I’m looking for my Chinese spy. I miss you. Please help me find him.”

And Chinese users responded: “I’m here!”

RedNote’s candid and funny conversations may not be what Chinese President Xi Jinping had in mind when he spoke of “strengthening people-to-people cultural exchanges” between China and the US.

But that’s certainly what’s happening, with excited Chinese users welcoming curious Americans to the app.

“You don’t need to travel abroad, you can talk to foreigners here,” said a Chinese RedNote user in a video that has received more than 6,000 likes.

“But honestly, it’s crazy, no one expected that one day we would meet like this, communicate openly like this.”

Food, streaming shows and jobs were the most popular topics: “Is life in America like (US TV show) Friends?”

Other Chinese users demanded a “tax” to use the platform – cat photos.

“California cat tax,” says one message in reply. “Here’s my offer: the short hair is a boy named Bob and the calico is a girl named Marley.”

Others are using the platform to ask Americans for help with their English homework.

One post reads: “Dear TikTok refugees, could you please tell me the answer to question 53? Is the answer T (true) or F (false)?”

Help came quickly: since then some 500 people have responded.

The flood of new American users seems to have caught RedNote off guard – reports say the company is hiring English moderators.

And others are also trying to cash in on RedNote’s newfound stardom in the US: language learning app Duolingo released a chart showing a 216% jump in its user base compared to this time last year.

RedNote’s rising popularity is not guaranteed to last.

There’s no reason to think it won’t come under fire for the same reasons as TikTok: concerns that China could use it to spy on Americans.

It’s unclear how long Beijing will remain open to such no-nonsense exchanges: Internet control is central to its repressive regime.

One Chinese user lamented the irony of the situation: “Don’t we have a (fire) wall? How can so many foreigners get in, and clearly I can’t get out?”

Normally, Chinese Internet users have not been able to directly interact with foreigners. Global platforms like Twitter and Instagram and search engines like Google are blocked in China, although people use VPNs to bypass these restrictions. Sensitive topics – from history to dissent – or anything deemed critical of the Chinese government and the ruling Communist Party are quickly censored.

It is not clear how much RedNote – mostly used by young and middle-aged women in China – has been censored, where they share images and videos. It’s not Weibo, another Chinese app where discussions and complaints are much more common, and posts are often taken down.

But some new RedNote users say they’ve already received reports that their posts violated the guidelines, including one who asked in a post whether the app was “LGBT friendly.”

Another said they were asked “What do (sic) Chinese gays think?” and received a similar notification that they had violated the “public moral order” guidelines.

And Chinese users on the app remind Americans “not to mention sensitive topics like politics, religion and drugs.”

A Chinese user advised them to stick to the “One China Policy,” the diplomatic pillar of the US-China relationship; accordingly, the US recognizes formal relations with China rather than with Taiwan, which Beijing says is the self-governing island. his own

The US government has not yet commented on RedNote, and neither has Beijing.

But China’s state media is cheering, with the Global Times also interviewing a US user who said he would “like to interact with Chinese users”.

RedNote’s fate in America is anyone’s guess, but for now, online at least, the US-China rivalry is resting. Thanks to the cat photos.