this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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The rednote move is mostly a form of protest. People are fully aware its a dumb idea for privacy.
It's a bad form of protest, because it doesn't do what protests are meant to do, but okay.
Protests are about bringing visibility about an issue to a wider audience right?
Tons of news coverage, anyone on the app store or play store are seeing the App at the top of the charts, sounds like visibility to me!
Protests have to do more than that to be effective. This issue is already incredibly visible just because of the news media covering the ban. People already know. So the protest doesn't get people's attention.
But a good protest provides a lens through which to put the average person in the shoes of those people who are detrimentally affected or trying to effect change.
It also usually inconveniences the institution being protested against, and the people not personally involved to incentivize them to help with a movement.
This doesn't really tick any of the boxes of a protest from what I can tell but I've seen the word protest used to describe it several times.
I'm happy to listen to what the aims of this protest are and what they hope to achieve. Nobody yet has given me much of an answer.
You're actually one of the few people who have bothered to respond who even seems to know that visibility is an important component of a good protest.
Plenty of discussion happening on tiktok about the reasons and methodology for this, which is where it's being organized from.
Keep in mind that mass adoption of rednote will force the US to ban it as well, which provides another opportunity in the future to bring more visibility to the authoritarianism by which the US government is operating this ban. It also sets a precedent for any other things the US government might target. There's a lot of speculation that other games and apps owned partially or majority by ByteDance will be next, like Epic games, League of Legends, etc. If the rednote jump proves to be a successful method for continuing the conversation, then gamers and users of other services that are banned in the future could see that as a blueprint for their own acts of civil disobedience.
We will see what happens, but if every time the US government bans an app or platform, the people just move onto something even worse for the US governments desires (and especially if we move to something that won't give profits to US companies), then it becomes a tactic the US government will have to abandon. So, more accurately, this is a large act of civil disobedience. Wanna ban tiktok? Great, we'll just go to an actual Chinese-influenced place that actually has Chinese government surveillance
It isn't as good as blocking city infrastructure, no, but it's certainly going to make a lot of shareholders of Meta and other US social media angry that people aren't flocking back to their apps. It also stands a chance of ensuring US officials who signed the tiktok ban and then bought Meta stock won't see a profit from their actions.
A protest on the streets isn't likely going to move the needle on tiktok. The only successful street protests (and barely successful at that) on a national level in recent times have been the BLM protests. The Free Palestine protests haven't been unsuccessful, but they also haven't really moved the needle either. Protesting on the streets runs an ever increasing risk of police violence and retribution by the surveillance state. And with the trump administration signaling it plans to green light further police violence against protesters, up to bringing in the military, that may not even be viable in the future.
Moving to something like Loops would absolutely be a better option, both because of it being part of the fediverse and therefore not controlled directly by any government, and because it's not likely to get banned. The fact that rednote will absolutely get banned once it reaches the threshold of users is not going to endear anyone who doesn't use tik tok to the movement. You don't explain what they're organizing or how the move to rednote makes the government look bad. If people don't care about tik tok they aren't going to care about rednote or the government banning it as well.
The US Government is not going to get tired of banning these apps. It doesn't cost them much of anything. The "tik tok" ban already has the terminology built into the relevant clauses to ban any app beholden to a hostile foreign power that is a threat to national security with a certain number of users. They'll just add this to the list. People will use a VPN and give their data to China or Russia or whoever and get hacked because the average person is stupid about online security at the best of times.
This doesn't inconvenience the government, doesn't inconvenience the average person who doesn't use tik tok, doesn't really detrimentally effect anyone but the people protesting, and I can't even say it's bringing awareness because nobody knows that's the plan. People are moving but the motives are opaque to those who don't use the app/aren't active in the movement.
You haven't explained how this "protest" actually ticks any of the boxes for being an effective protest and that makes me think you probably don't have that answer which is fine.
As for public protest "in the streets" I certainly wasn't suggesting that because I don't think that will work in this instance.
Like I said, we will see if it ends up having an effect. In the absence of other valid options, becoming ungovernable is the only reasonable option. Perhaps you have better ideas? I don't know if it's going to make a difference, but I'm not about to pretend I'm any better equipped to plan action to fight the constitutional abuses of the US government with a loosely organized group of social media users.
Tiktok users are aware of this, especially the ones participating in this.
It's not just about rednote, either. The other compinent is boycotting Meta products. There is also a simultaneous effort to push people to follow tiktok creators on YouTube or bluesky, and not on facebook/threads/Instagram. There is also a mass understanding that this is all interim and not long term.
Loops is 0% ready for people. I'm on loops. I hope it'll be viable in the future. It's taken loops months to send out beta access invites. How in the world could it handle several thousand up to 150 million users RIGHT NOW.
The fediverse isn't viable yet for the vast majority of people, especially creatoes with big followings. It can't even keep up in moderating for its existing user base, it doesnt have rhe tools that people with thens of thousands of followers would need to sort through their interactions, and it couldn't handle a mass influx of millions. Especially loops. Even Mastadon would cumble if its userbase went up by 50 million right now.
The fediverse is absolutely a long term solution and I'm hopeful for it, but there are some major gaps in onboarding, moderation, and scaling that prevent it from being a viable option rn. As it grows stronger it'll be able to serve that need.
There are up to 150 million Americans on tiktok, and basically any creators of significance are widely talking about this there. You could go see yourself. If only 1/6 of the user base sees the information that means the average American is 6 degrees or less of separation from someone who does care. Its got a wider reach than you think. Just because you don't understand the method of organizing doesn't mean it's bad.