Americans are joining the Chinese social media app en masse to protest an imminent TikTok ban.
- American users have flocked to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu in defiance of security warnings.
- Chinese and American users have engaged in surprisingly friendly conversations about each other’s lives.
- The influx of American users could burden Xiaohongshu’s censorship mechanism, experts say.
Youtube and Instagram tried for years to lure in Tiktok users, and they failed so badly that even with Tiktok potentially getting banned, people would rather switch to a different potentially sketchy Chinese app.
That they specifically went to another sketchy app is what gets me the most.
I could name tons of social network alternatives that are decentralized, give users control but for some reason those are sidelined as everyone suddenly wants an account on app they never heard off a few weeks ago and its main selling feature is that is at least as insecure and censored as tiktok…
They’re looking for a “fuck you” to the US government more than they’re looking for a new social media. Maybe it will stick as a popular platform, but I suspect it was chosen more for its name and ties to the CCP than any actual features.
I joined specifically for the fuck you.
I’m staying because I have found the most adorable content ever on there. This one guy does a dead on Trump impersonation and is hysterical, and there is an imperial dynasty of cats on there in full costume that i’m fascinated by.
I wasn’t even this fascinated by tiktok but i’m shocked how much better this is than american social media.
Some people are saying it’s for a particular rational reason. I personally doubt it. It’s all the articles saying “people are fleeing TikTok for…” and then they go to that thing. It only took one misleading sponsored article that looked legit to get things moving, then the reporting becomes accurate.
China playing 5-D chess ♟️.
It’s genuinely superior to tiktok though, the algo rewards like 1% of the ragebait, uncredited reposts, and deceptive posts that tiktok does. If they reverse the ban, I’m not going back.
Name them!
Your catching me off guard but uh sure
loops is a new tiktok like app for the fediverse. And probably most relevant. I say probable because i am still uncomfortable with this type of social media so i dont know what people expect or want from it.
odysee. Similar algorithm based video scrolling but have not tried it.
lemmy, bet you heard of this one before.
mastodon, a similar trend of today. People left twittercorp shithole. Had to make a choice between established actual alternative or brand new and empty twittercorp shithole 2.0
If these event thoughts me something its that people actually have no problem changing platforms and websites. Which i previously thought was the case. Its just seems unpredictable what actual sets a digital migration in motion and to where people will flock.
Odysee is more of an replacement for YouTube than TikTok, it has more wider videos, usually more than a minute.
I can see the logic. If I used these apps I’d rather have a different sketchy government spying on my than my own.
My understanding is that nobody actually cares about the data collection, its more of a rebellious move to punish the government for, in their opinion, overreaching.
For the record, I don’t agree with that - its just what I’m seeing.
Sketchy Oligargh Billionaire App VS State-Run-Sketchy Party-Official-Billionaires App…
Idk… Sounds like loose loose…
Party official billionaires are much better than sketchy “self made” billionaires.
Party officials owe their fortune and allegiance to the party, and we’ve seen some high profile cases of billionaires being brought to their heels very quickly.
Capitalist billionaires are the end result of a selection process that chooses the most self serving, greedy, ruthless bastards.
I’ll take #1. Fight me.
I take almost any Chinese party official over an American Billionaire. Rich people had their chance to prove capitalism works, it didn’t…
China has shown it jails Billionaires, so their Justice system works better than the one in the US.
It’s the Worker’s Billionaire, you western imperialist dog! Stalin did nothing wrong! Dengism forever! I am very normal!
closes hatch on tank and drives away
Supposedly they’re doing it on purpose as a protest. Not just one sketchy Chinese app, but any sketchy Chinese app they can find. In the hopes that Meta and Google will miss them, and the federal government will capitulate to stop them using those apps.
Because apparently they haven’t read the bill in question and think banning these apps too will somehow be “unsustainable”.
It’s still an act of protest. Even if it will only last a week.
However, XHS has gone through 3-4 major revisions in the past 4 days, they clearly are anticipating sticking around.
It would be so hilarious to me if they build a VPN directly into the app to sidestep the Great Firewall of America
https://lemmy.world/comment/14481177
This is not true at all.
https://lemmy.today/post/22321210
Prove that. https://time.com/7207351/tiktok-refugees-us-red-note/
https://www.deccanherald.com/world/us-tiktok-refugees-are-fleeing-to-chinese-app-rednote-its-a-new-phase-of-digital-cold-war-3358036
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonsnyder/2025/01/14/tiktok-and-rednoteconsent-without-transparency-isnt-freedom-its-control/
https://lemmy.today/post/22321210
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Ban Instagram, Discord and iOS first, anti-libre software.
They never will. This ban was never to help us.
They do not give a fuck about me or you!
This ban was never to protect user privacy. It is to protect the federal government from what users willingly give away to foreign social media companies (and only those companies that are in the control of US adversaries). It was never about you and if you assumed that based on what the government said, you deserve to be disappointed. They give only fucks about what the average user can do to hurt them.
Because Chinese intelligence doesn’t trawl YouTube, Meta, and X?
Sigh. That’s a whataboutism argument and I’m over it. You do not have to agree.
Not really. It demonstrates that this is useless and probably not the real intent.
And ban smart TVs!
And ban hardware firmware!
And shipping and receiving software!
And proprietary ore mining operation software!
All of it! They don’t give a fuck!
Lmao IOS? Next is Windows then?