Known in China as Xiaohongshu and as a platform to find lifestyle recommendations on areas from beauty to food, the app has in recent days been transformed into an unexpected bilateral channel for U.S.-China exchanges, with users swapping photos and questions about pets, favourite foods and their lives.
The influx of more than 700,000 new users has been driven by a looming U.S. ban on TikTok, used by 170 million Americans, on national security concerns.
Among them was Jacob Hui, a translator in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, who said he joined a live chat co-hosted by Chinese and American influencers on the platform and posed questions - such as what video games were popular in the U.S. - to the new users.
Chinese state media has also cheered the trend, with state broadcaster CCTV saying that the TikTok users had found a “new home”. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun, asked at a regular press briefing, said the use of social media was a “personal choice”.
China has for years tightly controlled cyberspace through its “Great Firewall” censorship architecture and blocked foreign social media networks such as Instagram and X.
RedNote, in contrast, does not require users to have such a number and maintains only one version of its app. The company did not respond to Reuters' request for comment on Wednesday. In the past, other Western social media platforms, such as Clubhouse, have enjoyed a similar trend of Chinese mainland users joining in swathes before being blocked by Beijing's censors.
The newcomers to RedNote have not been universally welcomed, however, with criticism from some Chinese users unhappy with how they were changing the content of the platform and from some nationalist Chinese bloggers.
“Propagandists from the United States can easily achieve their goals by following a simple routine - first praise you a few words to make you ‘relax your vigilance’, and then bring their own goods to subtly influence you,“ he said in an article first published on Wednesday morning that was later deleted.
“American netizens are in a dissatisfied mood, and wanting to find another Chinese app to use is a catharsis of short-term emotions and a rebellious gesture. You can see that Xiaohongshu is also caught unprepared, the experience on it is not very good for foreigners,“ he said.
Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing two sources familiar with the company, that the platform was scrambling to find ways to moderate English-language content and build English-Chinese translation tools.
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