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China Government Social Networks

On Eve of TikTok Ban, Chinese App RedNote Surges in Popularity, Delighting Chinese State Media (go.com) 54

Posted by EditorDavid from the little-red-book dept.
Chinese social-networking site RedNote became the #1 most-downloaded app in America, reports the Associated Press, with some new users considering it a way to protest America's possible TikTok ban.

So what happened next? They were met with surprise, curiosity and in-jokes on Xiaohongshu — literally, "Little Red Book" — whose users saw English-language posts take over feeds almost overnight. Americans introduced themselves with hashtag TikTok refugees, ask me anything attitude and posting photos of their pets to pay their hosts' "cat tax." Parents swapped stories about raising kids and Swifties from both countries, of course, quickly found each other. It's a rare moment of direct contact between two online worlds that are usually kept apart by language, corporate boundaries, and China's strict system of online censorship that blocks access to nearly all international media and social media services... Xiaohongshu's 300 million monthly active users are overwhelmingly Chinese — so much so that parts of its interface have no English-language version... [Press reports suggest about a million of TikTok's 170 million users tried switching to RedNote this week...]

On the platform, two versions of the TikTok refugee hashtag have over 24 million posts, with related posts appearing at the top of many users' feeds. A large number of American users say they've received a warm welcome from the community, with #TikTokrefugee. "Welcome the global villagers" remains the top one trending topic on Xiaohongshu, with 8.9 million views on Thursday. Users from both countries are comparing notes on grocery prices, rent, health insurance, medical bills and the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Parents talk about what the kids learn in school in two countries. Some have already joined book clubs and are building up a community. American users asked how Chinese see the LGBTQ community and got warned that it was among sensitive topics, Chinese users taught Americans what are sensitive topics and key words to avoid censorship on the app. Chinese students pulled out their English homework, looking for help.

Chinese state media, which have long dismissed U.S. allegations against TikTok, have welcomed the protest against the ban. People's Daily [the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party], said in an op-ed about TikTok refugees on Thursday that says the TikTok refugees found a "new home," and "openness, communication, and mutual learning are the unchanging themes of mankind and the heartfelt desires of people from all countries."
Making the most of the moment is Jianlu Bi, who is apparently a senior content producer for Beijing's state-run China Global Television Network, which Wikipedia describes as "under the control of the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party". Friday Jianlu Bi crafted an article claiming "surprising" and "stark contrasts" were revealed: While the United States is often portrayed as a land of limitless opportunity, many American netizens have shared their struggles with high living costs, particularly in urban areas. One common theme is the exorbitant cost of healthcare. "I just got a simple bill for a routine checkup and it was over $500," shared one American user. "I can't imagine what a serious illness would cost! I feel like I'm constantly on the brink of financial ruin due to medical expenses." In contrast, Chinese netizens often express surprise at the affordability of many goods and services in their home country. For instance, the cost of housing, particularly in smaller cities, is often significantly lower in China compared to the United States.... This disparity is often attributed to factors such as government policies, economic development, and cultural differences...

Traditional media narratives often present simplified and often biased portrayals of China and the United States. For example, the U.S. is often portrayed as a land of opportunity with limitless possibilities, while China is sometimes depicted as a country with limited freedoms. Xiaohongshu, on the other hand, provides a platform for ordinary people to share their authentic experiences and perspectives... A Chinese student studying in the U.S. shared, "I was surprised to learn that many of my classmates are working part-time jobs to cover their tuition and living expenses. This is very different from the image of affluent American students I had in my mind. It really opened my eyes to the realities of life for many young people in the U.S."
"As social media continues to evolve, these platforms will undoubtedly play an increasingly important role in shaping global perceptions..." the article concludes.

Article suggested by long-time Slashdot reader hackingbear.

On Eve of TikTok Ban, Chinese App RedNote Surges in Popularity, Delighting Chinese State Media More | Reply

On Eve of TikTok Ban, Chinese App RedNote Surges in Popularity, Delighting Chinese State Media

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  • They're just gonna ban rednote. Stop selling out to governments that spy on you. If you don't like Facebook/Google/X then stop using their crap too!

    • I agree with you, but I am really tempted to create an account just to see what it is like. I'm so curious what an actual Chinese social media network is like. After all, our cultures are so different. OTOH, I wonder if there's a need to sandbox myself first? Maybe I'll install it on an Android emulator like Bluestacks instead of my phone and use false information for everything.

      • They're walling off American users so that they can't influence the Chinese userbase. Without a really clever VPN, you'll never know. Chinese TikTok is vastly different though.

      • They're banning Americans for posting skin or gay stuff.

        No tolerance for that inside China. You'll be ok with wholesome content.

        They just arrested a woman in Turkey for a lewd online stunt too.

        Pendulum swings back and forth.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ukoda ( 537183 )
          When I was living there, a decade ago, the TV shows were so boring. The only one that had modest entertainment value was a game show with contestants running an obstacle course in bikinis. It was taken off air after a short run, presumably not wholesome enough.

          • The Tencent production of Three-Body Problem was quite good. Not great, but on the whole a much better (closer) translation of the novel.

        • They're banning Americans for posting skin or gay stuff.

          There's at least 19 states in the USA salivating at the idea of being able to do exactly the same thing. We've got far more in common with China than we'd like to admit. It's time to drop the high and mighty saviors of free expression act, because the mask just fell off and there's no Deus ex machina coming to save the day. We live in a country that banned foreign social media app because our leadership believes our citizens need to be coddled like children, which puts us firmly in the same club as... we

      • One thing that caught my eye was the level of opulence of the surroundings compared to most major cities in the US (Las Vegas notwithstanding. A block off The Strip is barbed wire and vomit and needles), Even in the country. And it made me wonder...

        WHERE THE HELL DOES ALL THE MONEY GO?

        For being the wealthiest country ever in the history of the world, the US is a pretty shabby affair. And given how GDP is spread across over a billion people, where does the money go?

        • Money in China is highly concentrated. Way more than the US and other Western countries.

          There's a reason so much of our manufacturing was shipped to China: it's cheaper there, even after you include the cost of shipping back to the US. Why is it cheaper? Staff is a huge cost to every company and in most/many companies the highest cost. People there make less. A lot less than Westerners.

          Certain things are cheaper in China but not everything. The average Chinese living in a city can get by, eat, have

          • USA and China have nearly the same gini index, a measure of wealth inequality, now Mexico, they are far worse than the US, and Brazil one of the worst https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          • I think your views on China are a little outdated. The reason China is advantageous wrt manufacturing is little-to-nothing to do with low salaries, and increasingly skill, technologies and supply chain efficiencies. Maybe a decade or two ago...but not for a while.

        • The money goes to Gates, Trump, Bezos, and their ilk. China redistributes and has slave labor. Some good, and a lot of bad.

        • A lot of what you're seeing is malinvestment, which is draining the Chinese economy of any dynamism and increasingly putting them at serious risk of collapse. Essentially, due to capital controls, housing became the one investment that people could put their money into. This created a massive housing bubble which now threatens to take down the economy. There are entire cities with skyscrapers and parks and really nice infrastructure, but they're ghost towns.

          So, essentially all that great infrastructure (whi

        • Where the hell does all the money go? (uncapitalized due to lameness filter fail)

          Pick-up trucks.

    • They're just gonna ban rednote.

      It's stupid for that reason, yes, but to me seems even more stupid to jump from a platform that we all know sent as much info about you to China as it could, to a platform that probably collects even MORE data!

      It's like people are thinking they are going to "stick it to the man" by giving away even more private data to China.

      On a side note with access to all of these videos you have to wonder what kind of amazing social connection graph China is building just by running face

      • "we all know"

        As soon as I read that, I know I can reliably ignore the rest of the message.

      • China is building just by running face recognition on every single person seen in every person every appearing in the background of TikTok videos.

        Ironically, since I live in Florida I've discovered that some porn sites are now doing face scans ostensibly as a means of determining age. Seems like a great way to build a database of people who are looking at porn, which I'm sure will never be used for nefarious purposes. Oh right, I forgot, when US-based companies shit all over your privacy that's just fine. Silly me.

    • They're just gonna ban rednote.

      Well "they" can't exactly ban tiktok. The only thing "they" can do is order US companies to delist it from app stores. Which is an odd thing actually because these apps already violate the rules of said app stores, just the companies that run them selectively enforce their own rules. Regardless, you can still obtain the app any other way so long as you actually own the computer you're installing it on. Pretty much the only people who don't own their computers are apple users, even though they pay up the ass

      • You can sideload it on Android devices but not on iPhone. Also with Oracle shutting down the back end services TikTok used, the app may slow to a crawl.

        The web interface will probably still be usable. It may require a VPN.

        • Could you use a vpn (or roaming sim) to use the EU app store, to get updates from there (or a 3rd party store)?

          I don't know why the US gov couldn't force Oracle to shut the services down, as well as the two app stores.

          What about the other android stores?

        • Tuktok is blocking general access based on geolocation. You can still go to the website and login to download your data but can't otherwise use the service without jumping through a non-US proxy.
  • Was this an organic process, or are Pooh's minions algorithmically creating a consensus of where to go? IOW: does the CCP's response to banning TicTok demonstrate that TicTok is an apparatus of the state ?

    • https://www.thefp.com/p/jay-so... [thefp.com]

      Of course TikTok is an apparatus of the PRC.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ukoda ( 537183 )
      How to tell if a Chinese company is an apparatus of the state:
      1. It is a legally registered company in China.

      When the Chinese government tells a company to do something they do it and they are not allowed to disclose that they were told to. If you don't your company will disappear, shortly after you disappear.

      For businesses in China this is all just routine. You try to keep a low profile but if you come to their attention you do what is asked and then get back on with business.

      • Are you really such a brain washed idiot?
        Did you actually ever had a brain?

        • We have the same thing here, called National Security Letters.

          Why do you think they don't do what we do?

          • Why do you think they do what you do?

            Imo, that's a common mistake of people in the USA, especially their government and security services.
            Surely the Chinese gov can see the mess the USA has become and doesn't want to end up that way, and is very discerning what aspects to emulate and what to throw away as the crap it is.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ukoda ( 537183 )
          What is with the insults? I lived in China for two years and have worked with companies there for about 15 years. I know first hands the way the Chinese government dealt with my employer. For example they wanted access to all our IP and communications. To do that they required us to allow them to install network monitoring equipment to our internal LAN. It was not a request, it was a directive. In another instance they raided our company to check all the foreigners had the correct paperwork. Two of o

          • I have lived in China for over 20 years, and worked for a few companies too, even as the main IT guy, and we never had such as you describe. Perhaps there was a good reason you were targeted. It sounds like they caught a few violations too, so fair enough.

            Rights are totally manufactured ideas and vary everywhere. People have rights in China too, but not the BS rights you value in the USA...at least not when they come to subversion and destabilising social harmony.

            Maybe you were in China longer ago than my 2

            • People have rights in China too, but not the BS rights you value in the USA...

              And what rights that people in the USA have do you consider to be BS, and why?

  • What is that up in the sky? Is it a bird? A plane? No! It's the BAN HAMMER. Coming straight down on the next Chinese state social media operation to infest America.

    • You lot pretend to like freedom, but actually prefer to be dictated to.

      • Your talking points would feel much better if wadded into nice tight (but BIG) ball and shoved all the way up your ass until they touch your tonsils. Get back to me when you have completed that assignment and I will give you another one.

  • "I am forgotten."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ukoda ( 537183 )
      Yea, well that is because it has been over a decade since YouTube was banned in China. That is old news, no one cares anymore.
  • Billionaire oligarchs or lackey autocrats, choose your side! I mean, they could try an open platform designed to be free of censorship and control like Pixelfed, but that would require social media users have even the slightest bit of intelligence.

    • The Internet used to be based on protocols and the end client software was something you could choose. Nowadays, it's more like you get the whole thing and you get what you're given. It's not a good thing, imo.

  • When the people of each country can see that the people of the other country are not evil but very much like themselves, trying to make a living as best they can.
  • If Rednote was smart, they would create two separate and distinct websites. One for Chinese, and one for everyone else (English). That way, their Chinese users wouldn't be overwhelmed with millions of newcomers flooding their feed.

  • There are unsurprisingly pros and cons for both the US and China. Also unsurprisingly, it makes a huge difference whether you are privileged or not, and this is the same for the US and China.

    Healthcare is generally cheaper in China, but care and wait times for some services can be substandard. Job prospects for young people can be daunting in the US, but they can be soul crushing in China, especially for those who weren't privileged to go to the top schools or be networked to the right people or who happen

  • As the author of the original post which, as usual on any posts with slightly positive views on China, was heavily edited by the slashdot editor, I would point out key contents I deem important in my original post:

    While American opinion elites have raised concerns of politicized issues such as free speech and social values, down-to-the-earth netizens are conducting mutual “audit” of life from cat photos to stuff that matters such as ...

    I deem these important because the reality in China are that

    1. Most social issues are not political, rather they are just like the ones you face in the States: high costs in housing and education, lack of good jobs, etc.
    2. Most social issues are hotly discussed online everyday. You don't know Chin

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