Americans, Chinese share jokes about ‘alternative TikTok’ as US ban looms

The threatened ban on TikTok brought Chinese and American citizens together like never before as they exchanged jokes and memes in what one user called a “historic moment.”

It all unfolds on a popular Chinese social media app called RedNote, or Xiaohongshu (literally translated as Little Red Book), which doesn’t have the usual internet firewall that separates China from the rest of the world.

It was a self-confessed drawing America’s ‘TikTok Fugitives’ are looking for a new home online – despite their own government pushing to ban TikTok over national security concerns.

Americans are now in direct contact with 300 million Mandarin speakers in China and elsewhere, while in the real world Beijing is bracing for a tumultuous Trump presidency that could strain its fragile ties with Washington.

The US ban is based on fears that China is using TikTok to spy on Americans.

The app has faced accusations that user data is falling into the hands of the Chinese government – due to a Beijing law that requires local companies to “support, assist and cooperate with state intelligence”. TikTok denies that this ever happened, or that it will happen.

But that possibility doesn’t seem to bother some US users, with 700,000 new users signing up for RedNote in the past two days, making it the most downloaded free app in the US App Store.

“The reason our government is telling us they’re banning TikTok is because they insist it belongs to you guys, the Chinese people, the government, whoever,” said one new RedNote user, Definitelynotchippy.

She goes on to explain why she’s on RedNote: “Although many of us are smarter, that’s why we decided to piss off our government and download a real Chinese app. We call it trolling, so in short, we’re here to piss off our government and learn about China and talk to you guys.”

Although owned by Chinese company ByteDance, TikTok is headquartered in Singapore and says it is independently run. In fact, the Chinese version of TikTok is another app called Douyin. RedNote, on the other hand, is a Chinese company based in Shanghai and one of the few social media apps available both in and outside of China.

Washington’s concerns about TikTok therefore extend to RedNote.

That’s why American RedNote users are calling themselves “Chinese spies” – continuing the TikTok trend of people saying goodbye to their “personal Chinese spy” who has allegedly been following them for years.

RedNote now has a lot of posts where ex-TikTok users are looking for a replacement. One message reads: “I’m looking for my Chinese spy. I miss you. Please help me find him.’

And Chinese users responded: “I’m here!”

The candid, fun conversations on RedNote may not be what Chinese President Xi Jinping had in mind when he spoke of “strengthening people-to-people cultural exchanges” between China and the US.

But that’s certainly what happens when excited Chinese users welcome curious Americans to the app.

“You don’t even need to go abroad, you can just talk to foreigners here,” said one Chinese RedNote user in a video that has garnered more than 6,000 likes.

“But it’s honestly crazy, no one expected that we could meet like this one day, talk so openly.”

The most popular topics were food, broadcast shows and work: “Is life in America like what it looks like on (US TV show) Friends?”

Other Chinese users demanded a “tax” for using the platform — photos of cats.

“California’s cat tax,” reads one post in response. “Here’s my suggestion: a short-haired boy named Bob, and a girl named Marley without a coat.”

Still others use the platform to ask Americans for help with their English homework.

One post reads: “Dear TikTok refugees, could you please tell me the answer to question 53? Is the answer T (True) or F (False)?”

Help came quickly, with about 500 people responding since then.

The influx of new American users seems to have caught RedNote off guard, with reports that the company is hiring English moderators.

Others are also trying to cash in on RedNote’s newfound stardom in the US, with language learning app Duolingo posting a chart showing a 216% jump in its user base compared to this time last year.

However, RedNote’s rise in popularity is not guaranteed to last.

There’s no reason to believe it won’t face backlash for the same reasons as TikTok: concerns that China could use it to spy on Americans.

It’s unclear how long Beijing will be open to such unhindered exchanges — control of the Internet is key to its repressive regime.

The irony of the situation was noted by one Chinese user who wrote: “Don’t we have a (fire) wall? How can so many foreigners get in when I clearly can’t get out?”

Generally, Chinese Internet users cannot directly interact with foreigners. Global platforms like Twitter and Instagram and search engines like Google are blocked in China, although people use VPNs to get around these restrictions. Sensitive topics — from history to dissent — or anything seen as critical of the Chinese government and ruling Communist Party are quickly censored.

It’s unclear to what extent RedNote is censored — it’s mostly used by young and middle-aged women in China, where they share images and videos. This is not unlike Weibo, another Chinese app where discussions and airing of grievances are much more common, resulting in frequent deletions of posts.

But a handful of new RedNote users say they’ve already received messages saying their posts violate the guidelines, including one who asked in a post whether the app was “LGBT-friendly.”

Another said they asked, “What (sic) Chinese people think about gays?” and received a similar notice that they had violated the principles of “public moral order.”

And Chinese users continue to remind Americans on the app “not to mention sensitive topics such as politics, religion and drugs.”

One Chinese user also advised them to adhere to the “one-China policy,” a diplomatic pillar of US-China relations in which the US recognizes and maintains official ties with China, rather than Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own.

The US government has not yet commented on the RedNote, nor has Beijing.

But Chinese state media seems optimistic about it, and the Global Times even interviewed an American user who said she “would like to communicate with Chinese users.”

RedNote’s American fate is anyone’s guess, but for now, at least online, the US-China rivalry is on hiatus. Thanks to the photo of the cats.