Ahead of the possible TikTok ban, "TikTok refugees" are flocking to the Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu, or Red Note, with strange and fascinating consequences.

A strange phenomenon is sweeping through social media as the last days of TikTok in the US begin to unfold. As most of the 170 million American TikTok users await its ever-encroac

Chinese-owned TikTok is set to be banned in the United States on Jan. 19, 2025, and another Chinese-owned app is welcoming American "TikTok refugees."

Xiaohongshu’s biggest shareholders are in talks to sell shares in the Chinese Instagram-like service at a valuation of at least $20 billion, drawing interest from Tencent Holdings Ltd. and other big names as a potential TikTok US ban approaches.

TikTok refugees flocked to Chinese platform Xiaohongshu on Monday, where users greeted them with offers of Mandarin lessons and jokes about spying.

The US Supreme Court is due to rule on Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act that stipulates TikTok must be divested from its Chinese parent company ByteDance by Sunday or face a ban in the US on the pretext of "national security" concerns.

Notably, RedNote (Xiaohongshu) is still available for download from the U.S. app store, despite being a Chinese-owned platform subject to China's data privacy and censorship laws. In the lead-up to TikTok's banning, many users have flocked to the video-forward platform as a potential alternative.

It is also owned by a Chinese technology company, raising the same kind of national security questions for the U.S. as TikTok has.

“The ones benefiting from traffic from the TikTok ban are still Chinese apps,” GSR Ventures managing director Allen Zhu wrote on WeChat, posting a screenshot of the US App Store download chart. A stream of new English-language content and users showed up on Xiaohongshu this week, and the #tiktokrefugee hashtag garnered more than 25 million views.

BEIJING - Share prices related to Xiaohongshu surged in the morning session on Wednesday after the Chinese Instagram-style app reached the top of the Apple App Store chart in the United States.

Xiaohongshu, which in English means “Little Red Book” is a Chinese social media app that combines e-commerce, short video and posting functions. The app is called “RedNote” by American users.

RedNote, also known as Xiaohongshu or “Little Red Book” in English, is a Chinese social app that combines e-commerce, short videos, and social media posting functions. The app has become a trending alternative for Americans amid the looming TikTok ban in the United States.