US TikTok Refugees Flee to Chinese Alternative App Xiaohongshu

With TikTok facing an imminent shutdown in the United States, American content creators have taken flight – to another Chinese social media app. Xiaohongshu, known as Little Red Book in English, surged to the top of the Apple App Store downloads yesterday, as users flocked to its Instagram-meets-Pinterest style layout. 

 

“Oh, you don’t want the Chinese to have our very sensitive personal data?” influencer Jen Hamilton (left) asked sarcastically in a video sent to her 3.9 million followers on TikTok, advertising her move. 

 

The US government passed a law last year that forced TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance to either sell the wildly popular platform or shut it down. It goes into effect Sunday. 

 

While critics of the legislation have argued it curtails free speech, the US government have alleged TikTok allows Beijing to collect data and spy on users and is a conduit to spread propaganda. China and ByteDance strongly deny the claims. 

 

Users like Hamilton aren’t concerned. “It is impossible how little I care that the Chinese (have) my data,” she said in her video, sharing a joke about a user that “changed their username to their social security number” so alleged spies could “get promoted faster”. 

 

“Come on over”, she urged her fellow “TikTok refugees”.  I would actually refer them as intrepid pioneers!

 

That Xiaohongshu’s platform is almost entirely in Mandarin seems not to be deterring curious Americans. TikTok has some 170 million users in the United States. 

 

Dubbed China’s answer to Instagram – which is blocked by Chinese regulators – and serving as a product search engine, Xiaohongshu boasts roughly 312 million monthly active users in 2023, making it the fastest-growing social media platform in China. 

 

At present, the platform serves as a go-to space for user-generated content, digital community-building and word-of-mouth advertising. While many Western social networks were created to keep up with friends’ lives, most Xiaohongshu users use the platform to search and share new products and services; post product or service reviews based on personal experiences or even gossip about local happenings. 

 

And Xiaohongshu’s “game changer” algorithm – users often cite its precision and effectiveness in detecting their content preference – is a big part of the app’s allure. This “algorithm” serves as a recommendation system responsible for curating a user’s uniquely personalised “For You” page that matches their interests.

 

If you are Chinese Malaysian and fluent in Mandarin, chances are you have a Xiaohongshu account. According to Xiaohongshu’s official data as of February 2023, there are more than 2.5 million Xiaohongshu users in Malaysia, which is the second highest country outside of China after Taiwan.

 

Though it may lack the global name recognition of Western social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or X, Xiaohongshu has since become the go-to platform for Millennials (those born 1981 to 1996) and Gen Z (those born 1997 to 2012) Mandarin-speaking communities since its launch.