RedNote may wall off TikTok refugees to prevent US influence on Chinese users. Rumors swirl that RedNote may segregate Chinese users as soon as next week.
arstechnica.com
RedNote "caught unprepared" RedNote may wall off TikTok refugees to prevent US influence on Chinese users Rumors swirl that RedNote may segregate Chinese users as soon as next week. Ashley Belanger Jan 16, 2025 1:49 pm | 105 Credit: Difydave | iStock / Getty Images Plus Credit: Difydave | iStock / Getty Images Plus Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreJust a few days after more than 700 million new users flooded RedNotewhich Time noted is "the most apolitical social platform in China"rumors began swirling that RedNote may soon start segregating American users and other foreign IPs from the app's Chinese users.In the "TikTokCringe" subreddit, a video from a RedNote user with red eyes, presumably swollen from tears, suggested that Americans had possibly ruined the app for Chinese Americans who rely on RedNote to stay current on Chinese news and culture."RedNote or Xiaohongshu released an update in the greater China region with the function to separate out foreign IPs, and there are now talks of moving all foreign IPs to a separate server and having a different IP for those who are in the greater China area," the Reddit poster said. "I know through VPNs and other ways, people are still able to access the app, but essentially this is gonna kill the app for Chinese Americans who actually use the app to connect with Chinese content, Chinese language, Chinese culture."There has been no official announcement that such a change is coming, but Reddit commenters speculated that possibly the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was requiring a change to stop American TikTokers from using the app to influence Chinese citizens."CCP don't want American influence to spread to their citizens," a top commenter wrote. That prompted another commenter to respond, "a bit of irony here," seemingly suggesting China walling off American TikTokers seems a lot like what the US government plans to do through the TikTok ban. But others pointed out that China has long blocked Western social media apps like Reddit and X to prevent such feared influence. "If people couldnt see this coming, then they have no idea what Chinas politics are," one Redditor suggested in the thread.On social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter), others discussed the potential update that could fence off Chinese users, with one post with 1.2 million views suggesting the update could come next week.Unlike other popular Chinese apps that require a Chinese phone number to register as a user, like WeChat, RedNote has never had such a requirement and always operated one single version of its app, Reuters reported. So, a shift to segregating users would be a big change and could possibly take more time.Whether TikTok will be banned in the US in three days is still up in the air. The Supreme Court has yet to announce its verdict on the constitutionality of a law requiring TikTok to either sell its US operations or shut down in the US. It's possible that the Supreme Court could ask for more time to deliberate, potentially delaying enforcement of the law as TikTok has requested until after Donald Trump takes office.While the divest-or-sell law had bipartisan support when it passed last year, momentum has seemingly shifted this week. Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has introduced a bill to extend the deadline ahead of a potential TikTok ban, and a top Trump adviser, Congressman Mike Waltz, has said that Trump plans to stop the ban and "keep TikTok from going dark," the BBC reported. Even the Biden administration, whose justice department just finished arguing why the US needed to enforce the law to SCOTUS, "is considering ways to keep TikTok available," sources told NBC News.Many US RedNote users quickly bannedFor RedNote and China, the app's sudden popularity as the US alternative to TikTok seems to have come as a surprise. A Beijing-based independent industry analyst, Liu Xingliang, told Reuters that RedNote was "caught unprepared" by the influx of users.To keep restricted content off the app, RedNote allegedly has since been "scrambling to find ways to moderate English-language content and build English-Chinese translation tools," two sources familiar with the company told Reuters. Time's reporting echoed that, noting that "Red Note is urgently recruiting English content moderators [Chinese]" became a trending topic Wednesday on the Chinese social media app Weibo.Many analysts have suggested that Americans' fascination with RedNote will be short-lived. Liu told Reuters that "American netizens are in a dissatisfied mood, and wanting to find another Chinese app to use is a catharsis of short-term emotions and a rebellious gesture." But unfortunately, "the experience on it is not very good for foreigners."On RedNote, Chinese users have warned Americans that China censors way more content than they're used to on TikTok. Analysts told The Washington Post that RedNote's "focus on shopping and entertainment means it is often even more active in blocking content seen as too serious for the apps target audience." Chinese users warned Americans not to post about "politics, religion, and drugs" or risk "account bans or legal repercussions, including jail time," Rest of World reported. Meanwhile, on Reddit, Americans received additional warnings about common RedNote scams and reasons accounts could be banned. But Rest of World noted that many so-called "TikTok refugees" migrating to RedNote do not "seem to know, or care, about platform rules."Likely as a result of failing to read community guidelines, TechCrunch noted thatmany American RedNote users were quickly being banned. Some were kicked off for reasons they didn't totally understand because "users are joining the app but are unable to read the Community Guidelines, which are written in Mandarin."Some bans were due to posting videos with a TikTok watermark, TechCrunch reported, while others were likely banned as suspected bots after several failed attempts to verify their US-based phone numbers. Several TikTokers have confirmed they're attempting to appeal their bans, TechCrunch reported, but no one's sure how easy it will be to reinstate their accounts.Investors are closely watching to see if American users will stick with RedNote, though. On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that RedNotes biggest shareholders were discussing selling their shares "at a valuation of at least $20 billion." Those negotiations could end, Bloomberg noted, if RedNote ends up being a flash in the pan or if TikTok remains available in the US.RedNote isn't exactly a perfect alternative for TikTok. It was founded in 2013 by Mao Wenchao and Miranda Qu Fang as an Instagram-like knockoff where Chinese users and lifestyle influencers could share pictures and text posts.If TikTokers politicize RedNote and influence Chinese users, some China-based RedNote users suggested, they could draw attention from the CCP, which the app has historically avoided.RedNote's Chinese name, Xiaohongshu, literally translates to "Little Red Book," which seems like a direct reference to a book of quotes from Chinese communist leader Mao Tse-tung. But The Washington Post reported that the app is designed to be apolitical and its co-founder, Mao, maintains that the name instead pays "homage to the colors of his college," Stanford Business School, and his former employer, Bain Capital.Ashley BelangerSenior Policy ReporterAshley BelangerSenior Policy Reporter Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience. 105 Comments
0 Kommentare ·0 Anteile ·27 Ansichten