As the day approaches when ByteDance Ltd. may have to either sell or shutter TikTok’s U.S. operations, the app’s American users are flocking to another Chinese social media platform.
The trend has seen Xiaohongshu — known as Rednote in English — become the most downloaded free app on Apple’s U.S. App Store, followed by ByteDance-owned lifestyle app Lemon8.
TikTok禁令意外利好小红书拉新。1月13日，小红书APP在美国苹果应用商店排行榜上的名次不断提升，一度跃升至免费APP榜首，超越Meta推出的类推特产品“Threads”。而在小红书上，通过标签“tiktokban”（TikTok禁令）、“#tiktokrefugee”（TikTok难民）已经可以找到不少定位在美国创作者、自称从TikTok迁移而来的创作者和用户。
移动数据调研机构Sensor Tower历史数据显示，1月12日，小红书还排在苹果应用商店免费APP榜单上第11名，一日后冲上第二名；字节跳动的另一款图文应用Lemon8在这两日始终保持Google和苹果应用商店的第一名。
Launched in 2013, Xiaohongshu was initially designed as a platform for sharing product reviews. It’s since evolved into a lifestyle-focused social media platform that offers a blend of pictures, short videos and text posts.
小红书诞生之初赶上跨境电商红利期，定位海外购物UGC（用户原创内容）社区，因此并未像抖音和TikTok一样做数据隔离，海外应用商店下载到的APP和国内是同一款产品。而随着小红书用户增长，有不少创作者会从小红书上搬运或者借鉴穿搭、美妆类内容发布到TikTok上，为小红书积攒了一定知名度。
A scroll through Xiaohongshu’s “explore” page shows English-language posts scattered among the majority written in Chinese. Many of the new U.S. users are calling themselves “TikTok refugees.”
“Many (American) people came to Rednote, rejecting Facebook or Instagram as a way of expressing their frustration over the international politicization of facts and circumstances surrounding TikTok’s operations in the U.S.,” said Jeremiah Wang, a U.S.-based TikTok user who has signed up for a Xiaohongshu account. Those people do not care whether an app is owned by a foreign entity or not as the U.S. government may also abuse their personal data, Wang added.
“许多用户来到小红书，而没有转向Facebook或Instagram，是以此来表达对围绕TikTok在美国运营情况的事实及相关情形被有意政治化的不满。”来到小红书的TikTok用户Jeremiah Wang告诉财新，用户们没有转而去用Instagram，是因为他们不在乎一款应用是否为外国实体所有，“许多用户认为，反正美国政府也会滥用他们的个人信息，至于Lemon8，我觉得很多人都没听说过它。”
“I think the (TikTok) ban will go through because our government is corrupt. Facebook paid our politicians to ban it and then gave them inside trading details. So not only are we losing TikTok, we are protesting against Meta,” said Sarah from the U.S. state of Utah, who has also opened a Xiaohongshu account, adding that turning to Xiaohongshu is also a “way for us to turn our noses up at our government.”
“我认为禁令会通过，因为政府腐败，Facebook贿赂了我们的政客让他们封禁TikTok，然后给他们内幕交易的信息。所以我们不仅失去了TikTok，也在抗议Meta。”来自犹他州的Sarah在小红书上开通了账号，她告诉财新，她从TikTok上了解到小红书（Rednote），“大家都说这是我们要去的新地方，也是我们藐视政府的一种方式，他们因为数据可能流向中国而封禁了TikTok，所以我们来这里直接给他们！”
While there is no evidence of Sarah’s specific claims, in 2022, The Washington Post reported that Meta Platforms Inc., the owner of Facebook and Instagram, paid a digital marketing agency to place anti-TikTok opinion pieces in U.S. publications. The pieces accused the Chinese-owned app of being a danger to American children, along with other disparaging accusations.
