this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
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U.S. TikTokers flock to Xiaohongshu, baffling and bonding with Chinese users. (restofworld.org)
submitted 16 hours ago by [email protected] to c/technology
132 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Americans are joining the Chinese social media app en masse to protest an imminent TikTok ban.

  • American users have flocked to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu in defiance of security warnings.
  • Chinese and American users have engaged in surprisingly friendly conversations about each other’s lives.
  • The influx of American users could burden Xiaohongshu’s censorship mechanism, experts say.
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

I dont mean that your tone is bot like or anything, just that they would want authentic voices.

I do find it hard to beleive, because look at the reddit and twitter transitions. They either took years (bluesky is only barely starting to gain notability, and I'm not convinced that isn't also doing astroturfing) or never happened (Lemmy userbase is a rounding error). Getting people to switch social media is very difficult. And tiktok isnt even banned yet.

Also, just because there are no ads, doesn't mean that no one is propping up the business. Someone is paying to keep the servers running and lights on, and an astro turfing campaign isnt that expensive. Social media companies either grow or die.

So if your liking this new site, power to you, but I suggest you enjoy it while it lasts, because its going to have to become profitable somehow, and that is never good for the users.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Remember that twiiter was not up against a deadline. There was no reason to move to move quickly.

We just had a supreme Court hearing on tiktok yesterday and it didn't look good for tiktok. That's why this is more sudden.

Why RedNote instead of loops.video or something? I'm not sure how the influencers decided to go there. Maybe that's your conspiracy. Or maybe one person thought of migrating to another Chinese app as protest and other people copied them

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

My conspiracy, if you want to call it that, is that I dont think article is the product of actual journalism. I think Xiaohongshu has paid for that article to be written, to give the impression that the influencers are moving to it, and its the next tiktok. One of the listed authors has never published anything else, and the site isnt exactly a mainstream news site.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

It seems entirely plausible to me that someone that uses tiktok a lot saw enough folks talking about it that they thought it would be an interesting story.

Further I feel like:

“I just wanted something that could replace TikTok, and also it was sort of an act of protest against our government,” the Texan said.

Xiaohongshu did not respond to Rest of World’s request for comment, including on the latest count of overseas users.

Although Xiaohongshu is widely used by overseas Chinese people, the platform has made limited efforts to attract a broader international user base. Even Xiaohongshu’s logo is designed with the Chinese characters of its name. It offers no in-app translation for user posts or comments, and only suggests Chinese-language keywords in its search bar.

But the sudden increase in American users likely poses new challenges for Xiaohongshu, as the platform tries to balance global business expansion with pressure to enforce China’s censorship laws.

are not really the sorts of claims that would exist in an astroturf campaign. I mean maaayybe they wanted it to appear more authentic, so they invited the writer to be more critical and portray the app in a revolutionary light that is pretty counter to it's culture, but I think it's far more likely to be genuine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Definitely valid points, and I might be wrong. It definitely isnt a super glowing article, but "flocking to" part of the headline struck me as a bit hyperbolic, which is probably the root of my skepticism.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago

Fair, I think hyperbolic headlines are just the reality of click-driven journalism :\

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

Also, just because there are no ads, doesn’t mean that no one is propping up the business.

There is a shopping tab, and ads are allowed as long as it's declared I think. Undeclared sponsored content gets bans.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

My phone failed whenever I tried to buy something (just testing to see what it would do), and I haven't seen anything that stood out as an obvious ad.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

I suspect it's looking for alipay or wechat or something.