US 'TikTok refugees' spark global rush of sign-ups to China's RedNote platform

South China Morning Post
·4 min read

In yet another consequence of the impending US ban on short-video app TikTok, rival Chinese platform RedNote is seeing a spike in users based in other countries, mirroring the migration of American self-styled "TikTok refugees".

The app - also known as Xiaohongshu, which means "little red book" - was ranked as the No. 1 free-to-use platform in Britain and Canada, as well as EU countries like Ireland and Italy, by the Apple Store on Thursday.

The exact number of downloads is unknown, but the app - launched in 2013 as China's answer to Instagram - has also cracked the top three in Apple's charts in countries like El Salvador, France, Portugal, and Spain.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

ADVERTISEMENT

According to third-party data analytics firm SensorTower, a similar trend is occurring on Google Play, with countries from Australia to Sweden seeing RedNote at the top of their downloads lists this week.

"Hello from Portugal, I came here with friends from another app," said one new user identified as Mfp Mfp, who was commenting in Chinese on a video of a young boy introducing his life in China.

"I've always been fascinated by your culture but did not know about this platform," the user said, adding that she hopes to learn Chinese so that she will no longer need to use translation software to make similar posts.

In the comments section of the same video, another new user - identified as Mina - shared an image of a motorway and a note that read: "Hello from the UK. It is very depressing."

Similar exchanges have proliferated this week across the Shanghai-based RedNote.

ADVERTISEMENT

Since its launch in 2013, the platform has evolved into a de facto search engine for everything from travel recommendations to college application tips, reaching nearly 300 million active users as of December 2023, with 50 per cent aged 15 to 28.

Unlike many Chinese social media apps, which have been split into domestic and international versions because of China's moderation rules, there is just one version of RedNote.

This has allowed Chinese and foreign online users to connect more openly and directly than they normally do. Popular international social media apps like Facebook and Instagram are inaccessible in mainland China without access to a virtual private network (VPN).

It is unclear whether this period of openness will last, or if it will quickly fade like the audio-based social networking platform Clubhouse, which for a few days in 2021 allowed uncensored, wide-ranging dialogue between Chinese and international users.

When asked this week whether Beijing would strengthen censorship on content by overseas users on RedNote, foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun signalled government support, saying "we encourage and support people-to-people exchanges".

ADVERTISEMENT

Meanwhile, US lawmakers, who have repeatedly raised national security concerns about TikTok, are yet to make up their minds on what the phenomenon means for their policy on Chinese-owned social media platforms.

Asked on Thursday if the US Congress should consider a more comprehensive approach towards foreign apps, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey said the migration to RedNote "is a very good example of the law of unintended consequences, which the Congress right now doesn't know anything about".

Reports of RedNote topping US app charts began circulating on Monday, initially driven by US users protesting against a looming ban on TikTok, which is due to come into effect on January 19 if China-based owner ByteDance does not divest.

Citing a source close to RedNote, Reuters reported that more than 700,000 new users had joined the app in just two days, but it is unclear whether the figure referred only to US-based downloads.

TikTok is waiting for a US Supreme Court ruling on the forced sale, which supporters argue is necessary because of concerns that the Chinese government could collect the data of American citizens or manipulate content on the app.

ADVERTISEMENT

The surge in RedNote users is occurring in other countries where similar concerns about TikTok's ownership have been raised.

In Canada for example, the government in November ordered the dissolution of ByteDance's operations there after a national security review of the company, but did not block Canadians' access to TikTok.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Latest Stories

  • Chinese app RedNote gained millions of US users this week as 'TikTok refugees' joined ahead of ban

    Chinese social media app RedNote, known in China as Xiaohongshu, gained nearly 3 million U.S. users in one day earlier this week as a flood of self-proclaimed "TikTok Refugees" joined, according to new data from analytics firm Similarweb. The Chinese-language app had about 3.4 million daily active users across both iOS and Android devices in the United States as of Monday, up from fewer than 700,000 the day prior, and around 300,000 the week prior, according to the Similarweb estimate. The influx of users has been driven by a looming U.S. ban on TikTok, used by 170 million Americans, on national security concerns.

  • Duolingo sees 216% spike in US users learning Chinese amid TikTok ban and move to RedNote

    TikTok U.S. users have been learning Chinese on Duolingo in increasing numbers amid their adoption of a Chinese social app called RedNote ahead of the TikTok ban. The U.S. law, scheduled to go into effect on January 19, unless halted by the Supreme Court, will see TikTok removed from U.S. app stores and will stop the app from functioning on users' devices unless they install a VPN client. Instead of trying to work around the ban, however, over 700 million TikTok users have shifted over to the social video platform RedNote (aka Xiaohongshu), prompting a surprising cultural exchange between the two countries' citizens — not to mention quite a few requests for American users to help with Chinese users' English homework.

  • RedNote is fast becoming the regular American's unprecedented window into everything they wished they knew about living in China

    RedNote, or Xiaohongshu, became the most downloaded iPhone app in the US on Monday.

  • Why American 'TikTok refugees' are flocking to Chinese app RedNote

    American and Chinese social media users are bonding on RedNote in an ironic twist that could backfire on the U.S. government and its plan to ban TikTok. In the days before a proposed TikTok ban, Americans calling themselves "TikTok refugees" are flocking to RedNote, a Chinese app with a similar format, and being welcomed with open arms.Chinese users of the app are greeting Americans and explaining how to use it, while some Americans are learning to speak Mandarin to fit in. "We Chinese people, w

  • I tried RedNote — the Chinese app that TikTok 'refugees' are flocking to as the Supreme Court upholds the ban

    So-called "TikTok refugees" are joking about being "reunited" with their Chinese spies on RedNote after the Supreme Court upheld the TikTok ban.

  • Ahead of U.S. TikTok ban, Canadians flock to Chinese 'RedNote' app

    OTTAWA — With TikTok facing an imminent ban in the United States, many Canadian users are moving to rival Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu — also known as RedNote — pushing it to the top of download charts in Canada.

  • Americans and Chinese share jokes on 'alternative TikTok' as US ban looms

    RedNote's Chinese users say it is the first time they have been able to speak directly to Americans online.

  • RedNote Blocks Posts on Tiananmen Square, Uyghurs as Migrating TikTok Users Spot Chinese Censorship

    New U.S. users are bound to the Chinese app's rules on spreading "the correct view of history" The post RedNote Blocks Posts on Tiananmen Square, Uyghurs as Migrating TikTok Users Spot Chinese Censorship appeared first on TheWrap.

  • Nintendo's next console, Switch 2, revealed in 1st-look trailer

    Gamers got a tantalizing first look at Nintendo's next video game console, as the Japanese company released a brief trailer for the Switch 2 on Thursday morning.The video offered very few new details about the successor to the Switch, its wildly popular portable-and-home hybrid machine that launched eight years ago, but it largely confirmed many of the rumours that had leaked through gaming sources over the last few months.The Switch 2 is set to release in 2025, though Nintendo has yet to reveal

  • Chinese AI start-up MiniMax releases low-cost open-source models that rival top chatbots

    Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up MiniMax has launched a new series of open-source models, intensifying the competition among mainland technology firms to deliver cost-effective AI systems that can rival top offerings from US competitors. The Shanghai-based company on Tuesday unveiled the MiniMax-01 large language model (LLM) family, which includes a general-purpose foundational model, the MiniMax-Text-01, and the multimodal MiniMax-VL-01 with visual capabilities. LLMs are the tech t

  • I bought a budget TCL TV from Amazon (it's on sale for $300!) — I'm so impressed that I'm going to buy another

    I'm terrible with technology, but I found it easy to set up and was able to stream Netflix 10 minutes after unboxing it.

  • Apple's AI Is Constantly Butchering Huge News Stories Sent to Millions of Users

    Apple came under intense scrutiny for rolling out an extremely underbaked and consistently malfunctioning artificial intelligence-powered feature that summarizes breaking news notifications. For over a month, roughly as long as the feature has been available to iPhone users, publishers have found that it consistently generates false information and pushes it to millions of users. Despite broadcasting a barrage of lies for weeks, Apple still hasn't addressed the problem. "This is my periodic rant

  • Exclusive-Chinese tech firm founded by Huawei veterans in the FBI's crosshairs

    The U.S. Commerce Department and FBI are both investigating a little-known telecoms hardware firm founded by senior Huawei veterans in China over possible security risks, sources and documents show. Founded in 2014, Baicells Technologies opened a North American business the next year in Wisconsin and has since provided telecoms equipment for 700 commercial mobile networks across every U.S. state, according to its website. The Commerce Department is investigating Baicells on national security grounds and has sent subpoenas to the company, four people said.

  • Apple Halts Disastrous AI System That Was Making Up Fake News Stories and Pushing Them to iPhone Users

    Apple has temporarily halted its disastrous "Apple Intelligence" feature which consistently bungled up its one task of summarizing breaking news alerts. An upcoming iOS 18.3 update will disable the summaries for news and entertainment apps, as the Washington Post's Geoffrey Fowler reports. For over a month, the company's feature has been consistently generating lies, pushing them to millions of users. Apple's admission that its feature has failed is rare for the iPhone maker. Earlier this week,

  • Apple loses smartphone sales crown in China, drops to third in 2024

    Apple was dethroned as China's biggest smartphone seller in 2024, with local rivals Vivo and Huawei overtaking the iPhone maker after its annual shipments in the country declined 17%, data from research firm Canalys showed on Thursday. It was Apple's largest annual smartphone sales decline in China since 2016 and involved contraction in all four quarters, including a 25% drop in the final quarter, according to the data.

  • Samsung Galaxy S25 Unpacked 2025 event: What to expect on January 22

    The Galaxy S25 series will be unveiled on January 22. A Galaxy Ring 2 and Android XR devices are less likely — but could make cameos.

  • This bestselling smart TV is on sale for under $450 — plus more Amazon TV deals, starting at $200

    Upgrade your TV-bingeing sessions with top-notch picture quality.

  • Will Donald Trump save TikTok from Joe Biden? He’s going to try

    Analysis: Trump sees halting the bipartisan TikTok ban as an easy way to show he’s delivering results. He’s probably right, writes John Bowden

  • Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban

    The Supreme Court upheld the TikTok ban. The Biden administration has left it to the incoming president, Trump, to decide whether to enforce the law.

  • Biden makes last big move to protect US networks from hackers from China and elsewhere

    President Joe Biden on Thursday signed an executive order that is his final stab at shoring up America’s cyber defenses after a damaging string of cyberattacks on federal networks that US officials have blamed on Chinese and Russian operatives.