AMERICANS are flocking to a Chinese-owned app called RedNote as an alternative to TikTok in the face of the impending shutdown of the beloved platform.
TikTok could be banned in the US this week unless its company sells it within the week or the Supreme Court intervenes.
As fears over the approaching ban grow, American users have downloaded another app to help offset the loss.
RedNote rose to the top of the app store on Monday as the most downloaded app in America.
The app, called Xiaohongshu in Chinese, is a platform for sharing short-form videos similar to TikTok.
Some social media users were quick to show their excitement for RedNote among the surge of TikTok users jumping ship.
“Rednote seems to be the move,” one X user wrote.
“TikTok who? RedNote is the place to be,” another noted.
“Just downloaded red note (Chinese TikTok) I’m loving it over here so far,” a third wrote.
“TikTok is about to be banned in a week & every american has already migrated to rednote making it #1,” another noted.
In addition to its video and live-streaming features, RedNote has been compared to Pinterest due to the platform’s additional focus on e-commerce.
The app, created in 2013, allows users to blend social media with online shopping, letting people share product reviews and lifestyle content on the app.
RedNote’s content is mostly in Chinese because the app is owned by a Chinese company.
TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, must sell the beloved app to a government-approved buyer by January 19 or face a ban due to national security concerns.
The decision has sparked controversy due to the platform’s wild popularity.
About 170 million people in the US use TikTok, which is roughly half of the country’s population.
How would the TikTok ban work?
In April 2024, President Joe Biden signed a law giving ByteDance nine months to divest TikTok due to concerns that the Chinese government could spy on Americans and manipulate content on TikTok.If ByteDance doesn’t sell TikTok to a government-approved buyer by January 19, app stores will be forced to stop distributing or updating TikTok.Companies like Apple and Google would be banned from helping to keep TikTok going, essentially forcing the app to die out.While TikTok likely won’t be removed from phones, it’ll slowly degrade without any upkeep and eventually become unusable.For the law to not go into effect, the Supreme Court would have to interfere.
Congress passed the potential TikTok ban last year when lawmakers shared worries about the risk of the Chinese government using the app to spy on Americans.
TikTok has denied the allegations of the security concerns.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/tech/13285603/chinese-owned-rednote-tiktok-alternative-ban/
