RedNote: Americans and Chinese share jokes about ‘alternative TikTok’ as US ban looms

RedNote’s growing popularity is not guaranteed to be sustainable.

There’s no reason to assume it won’t make a comeback for the same reasons as TikTok: concerns that it could be used by China to spy on Americans.

It’s unclear how open Beijing will be to such unfettered exchanges — internet control is key to its repressive regime.

One Chinese user noted the irony of the situation: “We don’t have a (fire) wall? How come so many foreigners can get in when I can’t get out?”

Typically, Chinese internet users are unable to communicate directly 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 critical of the Chinese government and ruling Communist party are quickly censored.

It’s unclear how censored RedNote is — it’s mostly used by young and middle-aged women in China where they share photos and videos. It’s not like another Chinese app, Weibo, where discussions and airing of complaints are more common, leading to frequent deletions of posts.

But a handful of new RedNote users said they’ve already received reports that their posts violate the guidelines, including one person who asked if their posts were “LGBT friendly.”

Another said, “What do the Chinese think about gays?” and received a similar notification that they had violated the rules of “public morality.”

Chinese users “continue to remind Americans about sensitive topics such as politics, religion and drugs” on the app.

One Chinese user also advised them to stick to the “One China Policy,” a diplomatic pillar of US-China relations — whereby the US recognizes and maintains official ties with China, not Taiwan, the self-governing island Beijing claims. own