At least as of this writing, we’re still waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision on the future of TikTok, but users of the app aren’t waiting to find out what happens next.
In the past few days, TikTok alternatives like Clapper, Flip, and TikTok’s own Lemon8 have climbed to the top of the app store charts. The most popular of them, Xiaohongshu, has made the biggest impact on its more than 700,000 new users.
The immigration — driven by an attempted ban and done out of sheer malice — proves that efforts to protect Americans from a “dangerous” program that has lasted more than five years have indeed been futile. In fact, the effort has apparently made things worse for those in power.
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Just dessert!
The US government has repeatedly said that its main goal of banning TikTok has always been to protect American users from Chinese ads and protect their data.
I think it’s fair to say, unsurprisingly, the government is in disarray. big time
In just a few short days, the Xiaohongshu—meaning “little red book” in English—upended US-China relations. This application was founded in 2013 and works like the Chinese version of Instagram. Not only are Americans consuming videos and images from an app that actively censors content about Tiananmen Square and shows nothing when searching for “Xi Jinping,” but they are vindictively agreeing to have the app track their data. All in all, the opposite result of what the US intelligence community wanted.
Many Americans also provide advice on how to better integrate with Xiaohongshu’s predominantly Chinese user base. A TikTok user posted a video this week urging new American users to stop “saying democracy” on the app. “If you are Taiwanese, and you are in Xiaohongshu, you are now Chinese,” he said. I’m sorry.” I couldn’t find a single criticism in his comments section. In fact, many users were thanking him for the tips.
If anything, the effort to ban TikTok has made Americans more interested in China than anything else. There is an influx of TikTok users learning Mandarin by chatting with Chinese Xiaohongshu users or downloading language learning apps like Duolingo.
I started learning on Duolingo and from the creators on Red Note [or Xiaohongshu]A TikTok user wrote to me. “I even added a Chinese keyboard option on my phone.”
“Downloaded Red Note and had my first Duolingo Chinese lesson this morning,” said another.
The X account for Duolingo launched on Tuesday in response to growing interest: “Oh, now you’re learning Mandarin.”
The number of new Duolingo users signing up to learn Chinese has increased by 216 percent, Duolingo spokeswoman Monica Earle tells WIRED. When someone signs up for a Duolingo account, they’re asked to fill out a survey explaining how they found the app, and the company has seen “a corresponding jump” in users who “TikTok” as the reason they chose to join Duolingo.
