Another Chinese social media app is gaining popularity with Americans anticipating the TikTok ban, including some North Carolinians.
It's called Xiaohongshu, or in English. It鈥檚 described as a video version of Pinterest, with several lifestyle categories like travel and fashion. It reached the number one spot on Apple's and Google's free app charts this week, thanks to a recent social media movement.
Self-proclaimed "TikTok refugees" have flooded the app with hundreds of thousands of new users this week, in what some see as a retaliation against the ban. , a technology policy expert at Duke University, thinks this is the case.
"It's not hard to see, because people are being very explicit about it, about Americans in particular and their distrust of U.S. tech companies,鈥� she told 瓜神app.
The Supreme Court upheld the ruling Friday, which means the ban will likely go into effect Sunday, unless TikTok's parent company ByteDance sells the app.
Cary resident Amira Tremelling made her RedNote account recently in anticipation of the ban. She believes it has only encouraged people to make the switch.
"I think it's interesting too, because the U.S. government is trying to get rid of Tiktok because they're saying it's Chinese-owned, even though the CEO is Singaporean,鈥� Tremelling said. 鈥淎nd instead, they just got all of the Americans on an actual Chinese social media app, and then everyone's learning a new language.鈥�
Until now, RedNote has always catered to a Chinese audience. Caplan said the migration of Americans to the platform has allowed for unique international interaction.
鈥淚t's a very interesting space still, where the Chinese culture is still being preserved,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here's kind of a marrying of Chinese and American culture right now, where you have English subtitles combined with Mandarin subtitles, and there's some other really interesting cultural exchange happening around explaining Internet slang and emojis and things like that.鈥�
Tremelling saw the same exchange across RedNote 鈥� with some Chinese users, she said, asking for help with English homework in comment sections.
However, with the Supreme Court decision, RedNote could be next on the chopping block. Caplan said it could set a precedent, since TikTok is the first app to be banned in the U.S.
"Now, the way that the law is written, it's fairly tailored towards ownership, and so it does allow them to kind of go forward and play that Whack-a-Mole game,鈥� she said.
According to Caplan, the main concern that led to the ban is the potential for TikTok鈥檚 data to be accessed by the Chinese Communist Party. However, she doesn鈥檛 believe that concern is legitimate.
鈥淭here鈥檚 been some very minimal examples of access to data that, from my experience as a scholar who studies tech platforms, is not out of step or out of the norm for access by any platforms to user data,鈥� she said. 鈥淢ost of the data that you can get through TikTok, that is acquired through Tiktok is also acquired by every other social media platform.鈥�
The only way TikTok could avoid the ban now is if ByteDance sells the app. While President-elect Trump may not enforce the ban when he takes office Monday, it鈥檚 not clear what he beyond that.
Despite being a longtime TikTok user, though, Tremelling said she's against the app being bought by an American company.
"I think it might be, like, heavily censored in some aspects,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 think it's fun to have (social media) all not owned by the same person, the same company.鈥�
Until the ban is officially enacted, Tremelling said her use of RedNote will stay occasional.
鈥淭iktok is, like, perfectly curated to me, and until the day it's gone, I'm gonna use it,鈥� she said.
