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Comment by hintymad

11 hours ago

> This is going to be an interesting experiment: A widely used social network across the world WITHOUT american content.

China has had such social networks for a long time. Their Weibo and Xiaohongshu are two prominent examples. Weibo started as a copycat of Twitter, but then beats Twitter hands-down with faster iterations, better features, and more vibrant user engagement despite the gross censorship imposed by the government.

My guess is that TT can still thrive without American content, as long as other governments do not interfere as the US did. A potential threat to TT is that the US still has the best consumer market, so creators may still flock to a credible TT-alternative for better monetization, thus snatching away TT's current user base in other countries.

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hintymad

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myrloc  11 hours ago

Are Weibo and Xiaohongshu used widely outside of China? Given the names alone I'd imagine their adoption is fairly limited to China.

gklitz  11 hours ago

> creators may still flock to a credible TT-alternative for better monetization

Seems people are already mass migrating to Rednote. I’m not sure how that plays out though.

  • throwthrowrow  4 hours ago

    I think it will be a temporary phenomenon. Tiktok people arrived on RedNote last week and were jaw-droppingly amazed at videos of flashy modern Chinese cities, natural wonders (Guilin mountains), beautifully dressed young men and women, tasty food, Luigi fandom, and cute cats.

    For many it was a revelation that the US government/media complex has been systematically lying to them about China. They are arriving at an acceptance that the US is a shabby declining empire dominated by a corrupt elite and heartless broligarchs. Always a good thing to bump up against reality, imho.

    However I think that the US-based population of Tiktok refugees will subside once the novelty effect has worn off. Probably shrink by half in a month. Hopefully there will remain a positive lingering effect.

    • cscurmudgeon  2 hours ago

      > many it was a revelation that the US government/media complex has been systematically lying to them about China.

      The rational and data-based take is that the CCP censors negative content about China on Red Book. See [1], [2] and [3] from David Zhang, and you can verify this on your own.

        [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LKR8-AxFvJY
  [2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4tMxW77lFBA
  [3] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/N65jFr061_o

      If China is so developed, why does it fight for developing nation status?

      https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202305/1290627.shtml

      > They are arriving at an acceptance that the US is a shabby declining empire dominated by a corrupt elite and heartless broligarchs. Always a good thing to bump up against reality, imho.

      Try making this comment about China in Red Book and see how long it lasts.

      Can you post a video about use of gutter oil in China on Red Book? You can post a video about drug use in SF on Twitter and not get banned.

      1 reply →

  • hintymad  11 hours ago

    Yeah, me neither. Some analysis said the absolute number is large but the percentage is still small. And the migration is more about protesting. Xiaohongshu will need to come up with better monetization schemes too.