As the deadline for a possible US ban on TikTok approaches, users are quickly migrating to other platforms. Xiaohongshu or “Red Note,” a Shanghai-based app that mixes short-form video and e-commerce with photo and text posts, has emerged as a surprisingly popular contender.
As of today (Jan. 14), Red Note is the most downloaded free app in the US Apple (AAPL) App Store. For some of the 170 million US users of TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, switching to another Chinese-owned app is a form of rebellion against the US government’s efforts to shut down TikTok. “Don’t underestimate how small we are,” said one TikTok user yesterday in a post that received 4.8 million views, where they described the move to Red Note as “a great way to protest.”
Spurred by concerns about China’s ability to access sensitive user data, TikTok’s upcoming ban could go into effect as soon as Jan. 19, without opposition from the Supreme Court or the sale of TikTok to the US owner. Chinese officials reportedly considered selling the app to Elon Musk, according to Bloomberg—a development that ByteDance later called “pure fiction” in a statement.
The ban is designed to prevent US app stores, such as those operated by Apple and Google ( GOOGL ), from distributing the video-sharing app. Although it is not clear what will happen to those who have already installed TikTok on their devices, it is possible that, without updates, the application will become unusable in the long run.
What is a Red Note?
TikTok users preparing for such a situation have started migrating to Red Note, calling themselves “TikTok refugees”—a hashtag that has garnered more than 100 million views on the platform. Founded in 2013 as a shopping site, Red Note has over the years added social video and streaming features and attracts more than 300 million monthly active users. The company is already very popular in China — 91 percent of Chinese influencers regularly post content on the platform, according to a 2022 survey from PJDaren.
Red Note, recently valued at $17 billion, has raised nearly $1 billion from investors such as Boyu Capital and HongShan Capital Group, according to Crunchbase, and reportedly doubled its profits last year to -$1 billion. Its founders include Charlwin Mao, who previously worked at Bain Consulting and Bain Capital, and former Bertelsmann CEO Miranda Qu.
Red Note isn’t the only TikTok struggling to attract the video-sharing app’s user base. Lemon8, a lifestyle social media app owned by ByteDance and reported to have more than a million daily active users, is currently the second most popular free app in Apple’s App Store. Close behind is Clapper, a Texas-based short-form video app with 400,000 daily users.
Whether any of these apps will be a permanent replacement for TikTok remains to be seen. Despite the fact that the Chinese ownership of Red Note and Lemon8’s ties to ByteDance may also make these applications inaccessible to US users in the future, not everyone is convinced that a TikTok copycat is the way forward.
“The real heir will be any app or platform that provides what people want to do online [next],” Karen North, a digital communications expert and professor at the University of Southern California, told the Observer.
The social media industry is changing—TikTok, for example, didn’t exist until 2017, when it emerged as “the next generation of incredibly engaging, incredibly viral video,” says North. “The question is: do people still want that?” he asked. “The staying power of any one platform is limited, because people want the next experience.”
