(This January 15 story has been corrected to clarify that registration is allowed with a foreign phone number, and that users are not required to have a Chinese phone number, in paragraph 11)
Author: Brenda Goh
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Users of Chinese social media app RedNote greeted “TikTok refugees” from the United States with selfies and messages on Wednesday, as Beijing said it was encouraging stronger cultural ties with other countries in response to the sudden influx.
Known in China as Xiaohongshu and a platform for finding lifestyle recommendations in areas from beauty to food, the app has in recent days turned into an unexpected bilateral channel for US-China exchange, with users exchanging photos and questions about pets, favorite foods and their lives.
But not everyone was happy, with some grumbling that their platform was being taken over, and nationalist bloggers warning of American influence.
The influx of more than 700,000 new users was prompted by a threatened US ban on TikTok, which is used by 170 million Americans, over national security concerns.
Many Chinese users on Wednesday posted selfies and messages saying “Welcome TikTok Refugees” and eagerly answered questions from American users on topics such as popular Chinese dishes, the city’s tourist attractions and even China’s birth policy.
Among them was Jacob Hui, a translator in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, who said he joined a live chat run jointly by Chinese and American influencers on the platform and asked questions — such as what video games are popular in the U.S. — to new users. .
“In the past, there weren’t many opportunities like this to interact directly with Americans,” he said.
Chinese state media have also hailed the trend, with state broadcaster CCTV saying TikTok users have found a “new home”. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun, when asked at a regular press briefing, said using social media was a “personal choice.”
“China has always supported and encouraged the strengthening of cultural exchanges and the promotion of mutual understanding among the peoples of all countries,” Guo said.
For years, China has tightly controlled cyberspace through its “Great Firewall” censorship architecture and blocked foreign social media networks such as Instagram and X.
Although many Chinese social media platforms such as Weibo (NASDAQ: ) allow registration of foreign phone numbers, they typically limit such users to international versions. ByteDance is restricting TikTok to foreign users and launching a separate version for mainland Chinese residents called Douyin.
In contrast, RedNote does not require users to have such a number and maintains only one version of its application. The company did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment on Wednesday.
In the past, other Western social media platforms such as Clubhouse had a similar trend of Chinese users joining before being blocked by Beijing censors.
‘PROPAGANDISTS FROM THE UNITED STATES’
However, the newcomers to RedNote have not been universally welcomed, with criticism from some Chinese users unhappy with the way they changed the platform’s content and some nationalist Chinese bloggers.
Ren Yi, the Harvard-educated grandson of the former Chinese Communist leader who runs a popular WeChat blog under the pseudonym “Chairman Rabbit”, warned his followers not to be influenced without suspicion.
“Propagandists from the United States can easily achieve their goals by following a simple routine – first they praise you with a few words to ‘relax your vigilance,’ and then they bring their own merchandise to subtly influence you,” he said in the first article published Wednesday morning. which was later deleted.
Beijing-based independent industry analyst Liu Xingliang said he believes RedNote’s sudden popularity among TikTok users will be short-lived, although the current atmosphere is “very warm and joyful.”
“American netizens are dissatisfied, and the desire to find another Chinese application to use is a catharsis of short-term emotions and a rebellious gesture. You can see that Xiaohongshu is also caught off guard, the experience with him is not very good for foreigners,” he said.
There were also signs that some new foreign users were testing the platform’s censorship restrictions, with some announcing on the X social network that they could not post about topics known to be sensitive in China, such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing two sources familiar with the company, that the platform was trying to find ways to moderate English-language content and build an English-to-Chinese translation tool.
