Comment by adriand
13 hours ago
What I love is that apparently tons of Americans are signing up for a different Chinese social video app whose name is being translated as “Red Note”. I would love if the end result of this was another several years of congressional drama about a different Chinese app.
What's interesting is that RedNote doesn't have the same level of segregation as TikTok, so the US and China users are having a lot of interesting interactions. Assum the app doesn't get banned, it'll be interesting to see if the experiences get more silo'd
I am afraid this might not last long. There is no official announcement yet for now, to be clear, but still[0].
0. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/rednote-may-wall...
I think it would be a good thing if average Americans and Chinese interacted more
Maybe then we will see we are all more alike than we are different
seems like a dangerous idea if you're Uncle Sam or the CCP. dogs and cats may realize they in fact enjoy living together. one can hope though, eh?
> if the end result of this was another several years of congressional drama about a different Chinese app
No need. If it’s Chinese and has more than 100mm (EDIT: 1mm) users, Commerce can designate it a foreign-adversary controlled application and designate it for app-store delisting.
I think the threshold is way lower than that? The "Covered Company" definition mentions 1 million monthly active users for at least 2 of the 3 months preceding some determination.
Also, I wonder who is the foreign-based "reviews" site that lobbied for the exclusion clause immediately following that?
https://www.congress.gov/118/plaws/publ50/PLAW-118publ50.pdf
Hmm, § 2(g)(2)(b) been there since the start [1].
[1] https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr7521/BILLS-118hr7521ih....
It’s even better than that. “Red Note” is the softened version. A more direct translation is “Little Red Book.”
> “Little Red Book.”
As in Mao's Little Red Book - https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34932800
Can't confirm as I don't speak Chinese but Sharp China podcast says this is a mistranslation, and that the word for Mao's little red book is not the same as the Chinese name for Rednote
1 reply →
Isn't Red Note planning to segregate based on IP to prevent US Influence from those TikTok refugees? The original CN users aren't exactly happy with the newcomers either, and the TikTok refugees themselves are getting quite a culture shock with regards to cultural attitudes to LGBQT or even basic "leftist" activism like strikes and collective bargaining
Anyways, those alternatives are not so algorithmically driven, and especially if it's forcing actual user interaction and discussion that certainly would be good for Americans to understand what the mainland Chinese are really thinking and saying domestically. Because if you go to the actual main discussion forums like Weibo, oh boy it's not going to be pretty.
Honest question: why would an American consciously seek out multiple Chinese apps on purpose?
To be punk rock. The main reason I see thrown around is most younger users don't care if China has their user data and understand that the government is banning it for their own selfish reasons (money).
You state that the US gov is banning it for money as if that’s a fact. I’d love to see the evidence for that.
The irony is that China bans essentially all US social media. I guess these users don’t care a ton their selfish bans?
2 replies →
Freedom.
Americans want freedom of speech without interference from the US government.
TikTok was banned because of sharing anti-zionist videos documenting the genocide of Palestinians.
4 replies →
if China has US consumer's data they can do very little harm as they lack enforcement. So its not a big deal to use Chinese owned social media app.
US however, if it has data on US users, has all the means to cause harm to US users, starting from censorship and persecution.
UK and Germany for example are jailing people for social media posts
https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2024/08/think-before-you-...
That seems decidedly short sighted to trust your enemy more because your own governments also do harm.
1 reply →
>... jailing people for social media posts
More like jailing people for inciting riots by repeatedly and vehemently posting proven wrong information. Freedom of speech is great and all, but you are advocating for freedom from consequences
1 reply →
Because deep inside, most people are still children, desperate to declare their autonomy.
Apparently currently they’re posting tons of 3d printed gun content. People are weird.
The most literal translation of 小红书 is “Little Red Book”, which recalls the famous book of quotes from Mao Zedong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotations_from_Chairman_Mao_T...
Except that’s not what Mao’s book was/is called in China, it’s a label the US applied to it. In China it’s better known as 红宝书 (Hóng Bǎo Shū) “The Red Treasure Book” or simply “The Red Book”.
I'm pretty sure it would be more a quick "Add this app to the TikTok court order".
Why would you love that?
It would likely lay bare just how much any of the TikTok detractors actually cared about privacy/security concerns versus cultural ones.
Sometimes it’s fun to watch chaos unfold. It’s subjectively entertaining
Someone wrote, "Because it's punk rock" and I think that sums it up. It's an act of rebellion.
He’s using sarcasm
Why do you love this?
Because if this sequence of events (one allegedly Chinese-government controlled social media app is banned over apparent ties to the government, so all of its American users immediately switch to another Chinese app whose name can be translated as "Little Red Book") happened in a movie, a reasonable person would balk at how ludicrous and on-the-nose the whole thing was.
It feels like a joke, and if you can somehow create enough space to actually see the humor in it, its kind of funny.
[dead]
It’s a clone being inorganically pushed to fill vacuum.