As TikTok faces a ban, at the same time, the Chinese app Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) has surged to the second position in downloads in the U.S. Will Xiaohongshu become the TikTok alternative for Americans, and why?
Last Updated: 03.07.2025 03:46
EDIT 14012025- I'm actually seeing the “Tiktok Refugees” on xiaohongshu. I have to admit… the interactions have been mostly positive so far. Makes me smile with a vain hope that maybe… just maybe…
Regardless of the precise route the government takes to block TikTok, there will almost certainly be ways around it, for example, by using a virtual private network, or VPN. A VPN is a program anyone can download that can hide location data and make it appear as though the user is accessing the internet from a different country.
It is widely expected that the US government will force app store operators, like Google and Apple, to remove TikTok from their platforms.
What will technically happen based on what we know is
IF Tiktok is banned come 19th January (2025)
RedNote (Little Red Book) is primarily used by Chinese readers and most of the content is in Simplified Chinese.
Probably not.
Could you get around a ban?
What I feel is more realistic is that all Tiktok servers would be moved overseas and those Americans who want to continue using Tiktok will get on VPNs.
…
The idea that Americans would use it as an alternative to Tiktok feels laughable. If Tiktok can be banned / blocked, what more RedNote?
Sauce: CNN - Supreme Court signals it will uphold ban on TikTok over national security concerns and other takeaways from oral arguments | CNN Politics
During more than two hours of oral arguments, many of the justices appeared to view the sell-or-ban law approved by Congress in April not as one that primarily implicates the First Amendment but rather as an effort to regulate the potential foreign control of an app used by 170 million Americans.
Translating the text into English is not very intuitive and I don’t really know if the translation is any good.
A majority of the Supreme Court appeared likely to uphold a controversial ban on TikTok over concerns about its ties to China, with justices lobbing pointed questions at lawyers for the social media app and a group of its content creators.
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The government could also force American internet service providers (ISPs), which provide access to the internet and the websites on them, to block TikTok, making it impossible to access the web version of the platform. But that approach would be complicated, Galperin said, because there are many more ISPs than app stores.
I’m using CNN as I feel it is mostly correct in this pair of articles based on my own reading of the situation. Disclaimer - I am not a lawyer.
Sauce - CNN - Yes, a TikTok ban is closer than ever. No, your app won’t just disappear | CNN Business
Banning RedNote won’t need the bruhaha6 that Tiktok is going through. RedNote won’t even bother defending itself. A Presidential EO and practically all US ISPs will fall in line.