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Many TikTok users are signing up for RedNote, an actual Chinese social media app. US users consider this a better option than American offerings such as Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube.

While Chinese developers are focused on building great products, US developers are focused on pushing politics. As a result, the Chinese apps are clearly more desirable for users.

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> While Chinese developers are focused on building great products, US developers are focused on pushing politics. As a result, the Chinese apps are clearly more desirable for users.

What specific features does Rednote have that beat US competitors?

Where do you think that US users heard about Rednote? If you are not a TikTok user, then you would had never heard of this app. Clearly, TikTok used their algo to "raid" Rednote, like a Twitch stream raid.

It's much simpler than that! You just have to recognize that this is basically the Streisand effect, or, hell, even just the Boston Tea Party!

1. A government/center of power imposes a unilateral decree to deprive many people of something they used to have a right to

2. The affected hear: "shut up about your rights"

3. This act of deprivation itself becomes the uniting common issue for the affected, and then they become a self-organizing body politic

3. The body politic then naturally becomes suspicious of any solution that appears to comply with the government's wishes

If you're surprised that people in this country protest when they feel their right to protest has been encroached upon - or if it seems surprising that using Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts would not be interpreted as protest but using Rednote would be (or, and this also seems very likely: if news organizations would ever NOT pick up the story of some number of users flocking to yet another Chinese app WITHOUT making it seem like a big protest) - I don't know what to tell you.

As someone who grew up under authoritarian communism, I know exactly what to tell you.

I'm not even a U.S user, and I heard about rednote on... Threads! From Meta. Kinda ironic.

I heard about Rednote on Bluesky, from the biggest non-employee code contributor.

TikTok is the most popular platform for the youths. They make waves everywhere.

People choosing to go there makes my head explode. The world is a big joke, and I ain’t laughing.

>While Chinese developers are focused on building great products, US developers are focused on pushing politics.

I disagree. I believe Chinese developers have more problems due to CCP's censorship. For example, the new NetEase game, Marvel Rivals, has censorship built in.

also, please explain in detail what politics is being push by US developers.

https://gamerant.com/marvel-rivals-censorship-chat-messages-...

>As a result, the Chinese apps are clearly more desirable for users.

A quick Google search shows that Instagram has over 2 billion MAUs, while TikTok has 1.6 billion.

Switching from a short-form video platform to a Instagram clone strikes to me more as contrarian tribalism than actually seeking alternatives to host one's content.

> Many TikTok users are signing up for RedNote, an actual Chinese social media app

PAFACA (seriously?) already empowers the President to designate "applications owned and operated by other companies" as "oreign adversary controlled applications" [1].

If a deal is forthcoming between Musk and Bytedance, RedNote will almost certainly be designated in Q1.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Americans_from_Fore...

Well Americans better get used to using a VPN if they want to breach their firewall. I gotta admit this cyber situation switcheroo happening in the third week of 2025 is not what i had on my bingo card. I expected that more to happen post Trump 2nd term.

> Americans better get used to using a VPN if they want to breach their firewall

The domains aren’t blocked. The apps are just blocked from app stores and hosting prohibited by American providers.