RedNote may wall off “TikTok refugees” to prevent US influence on Chinese users
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/rednote-may-wall-off-tiktok-refugees-to-prevent-us-influence-on-chinese-users/Open linkView original on lemmy.today599
Comments213
I knew it was coming since that article yesterday about us Americans posting vids of 3D printed guns lmao
Luigi is now the most popular name for newborns in China.
Please let this be true 🤣
Lu Yi-Gee
Imo it's more sad than hilarious. US users and Chinese users meeting each other on the platform and discovering they are interesting people who actually have a lot in common sounds like what I'd wish the internet to be.
It's not surprising, and I get the irony, but I feel more sad than amused.
You know, the news about Chinese and American users comparing their worldviews seemed weird to me because it reads like this is the first time Chinese and American users have interacted and had the chance to talk "candidly".
My first thought was, "Why the fuck is this news? It's not like Chinese users can't interact on American platfor---"
...oh. Right. The great firewall.
Nearly everyone on rednote knows how to use a VPN.
I totally agree with you.
We shouldn't be cheering on segregation.
This was the turn of events anyone who knows anything about China and the CCP (and how closely they control businesses there) would have expected.
TikTok is banned in China, so why would anyone ever expect this would be different in this case?
They have Douyin (it's a carbon copy of tiktok). Rednote released a public statement welcoming US users, no evidence that what this article implies is being considered at all. The evidence is a reddit post. You are responding in agreement to a propaganda rag.
They blocked the TikTok domain in China. What would you call that, if not a ban?
You are naive if you believe they aren't going to sever the communities. That was always going to happen.
The only vibe I get from you is "15yo who just learned about politics".
AN: read this user's comment history lmao
Why don't you answer the question?
Why is it a different product then? Does it allow the same content? Same algorithm?
Or is it different, and not an actual carbo copy?
Proof?
The last portion of your comment. Curious if you had proof
They're gonna build a firewall, and the US is gonna pay for it!
It amazes me how people apparently can't live without watching shitty videos all the time... Oh, well.
It’s an addiction. No other way to describe it. Like your coke dealer ran out so you gotta switch to crack instead.
Man people will do anything not to drink Pepsi!
Except skip soda.
Ironically I stopped drinking soda because Pepsi got rid of the only soda I really liked.
RIP Diet Pepsi Vanilla.
Which one?
It's not really an 'addiction.' It's a culture.
People don't value things that take time or effort anymore. All they want is their instant-gratification to forget about their shitty lives a little bit longer. Short-form video and posts provide this for them.
It's all according to plan to keep people apathetic until the day they die. That way, they never fight back against the people pulling their strings.
Rednote with multiple SIMULTANEOUS video feeds sounds like a whole new level of brain rot
Sorry what, you got a pic of this?
Read it here, hopefully not paywalled https://www.reuters.com/technology/chinas-rednote-what-you-need-know-about-app-tiktok-users-are-flocking-2025-01-15/
I feel exactly the same way. It's like they can't imagine a world without it. When it's banned they'll have to fill their time just staring at the wall.
It would be great if they switched to Zen Buddhism a few hours a day though.
Or, heaven forbid, talk to people in the real world.
I find takes like this unfortunate. I learned SO much on TikTok. Accounts like gatenerd, jerrythink, kellyscleankitchen, softpourn, publicopinion, hankgreen, alexisanddean, thelawsayswhat, kylascan, and countless interior designers, architects, chefs, and all the others I can’t recall.
There is no other platform like TikTok where you can get drawn in not just in minutes watched, but in knowledge gained. Wish you shared my experience.
I can understand your point until you get to the “there is no other platform like TikTok”. You lose me there.
Hopefully this little outage scare helps you to diversify!
Honestly, there isn't another platform that isn't a step down. The algorithm that drives the For You Page is leaps and bounds ahead of Instagram and YouTube.
The best analogy I can give is if Linux was banned for personal use in the US. Sure, you could use Windows or macOS; the later is even Unix based! However, it would be a downgrade for Linux users. Even something like FreeBSD wouldn't be a seemless transition, and the communities that were built would take time to recover.
Making an analogy where Linux is tiktok is wild.
Reading can accomplish the same thing, although it is a skill that has to be developed.
Edit: I see the influencers are on Lemmy since TT is going away and they are salty.
Eh. Most of these people are already wealthy from their parents and were just using their wealth to make more wealth by showcasing how wealthy they are to those who will never be wealthy.
Living vicariously is a plague. I think less of anyone who does it.
Yeah, sure /s
Americans: Got damn, asians are HOT
Chinese (apparently): Got damn, Americans are HOT
Humans gonna human ig LMAO
It really is a tale as old as time.
When the femboy exchanges begin happening the world will finally begin to heal
It's what connects us all.
Mongolia?
Nokia
Russia
Is this some biological instinct to ensure gene diversity?
Maybe. We should be attracted to people different to us for the healthiest babies
it maybe, but i dont think so, most animals dont go out of their ways to breed with same species from far off, especially if the said species forms communities. I think the simpler logic is - boredom - the people you grow up watching everyday become the normal, and if someone new comes, you curiosity gets to it
The grass is always greener I guess
Asian "grass" is usually darker.
Lactose tolerant?
Fuxking a man, you win.
White lightning
I had a few dates with an asian woman in the US who called herself only half-sarcastically a "Twinkie," which the Internet told me was yellow on the outside and white on the inside. I laughed to be polite not knowing what she meant, but when I learned it made me feel racist by proxy.
Maybe she meant cream filled?
Cracker addiction
Marshmallow s'more
Gold-digging.
I tried to challenge some ideas in World News and I guess asking questions about Chinese censorship is xenophobic. Now I'm banned for not being pro Chinese censorship.
There’s your problem. If they stated their rules, rather than forcing people to figure them out by trial and error, I’d have less of an issue with it. Like, lemmygrad is explicit in its intent and they state it outright in their rules. Lemmy.ml plays it too coy, and so comes off as incredibly manipulative.
You just broke the secret law!
Typical fascist behavior.
Sounds very You have been banned from /r/Pyongyang
Rule 1 - whatever we decide it is at that moment
Oh gosh, I thought you meant .world World News for a minute there. Yeah the problem is .ml, they're tankies.
whats that about "curry smell" and "they discovered deodorant"?
edit: nvm, those are from somebody else
Those are other users' comments. Not sure how those are relevant to JiveTurkey's comments.
Not sure.
I wouldn't take it seriously, they gave me a month long instance ban for saying a federal representative democracy is by definition a type of democracy.
"American propaganda" or something.
Is it democratic when the largest state and the smallest state both get two senators?
No, but it is a democracy.
Is it? Do you think the US was founded as a democracy?
God, shut up nerd, like your red fascist bullshit and their one party elections were or are better. Do you want to hear that it's a flawed system? It is. All states are and should be abolished.
Still a type of democracy, and still more democratic than anything Russia or China have ever managed.
Uhhh yeah. The Constitution establishes a federal democratic republic form of government. That is, we have an indivisible union of 50 sovereign States. It is a democracy because people govern themselves. It is representative because people choose elected officials by free and secret ballot.
ahh i apologize, i thought all comments came from you
Those sound like comments on a different topic, specifically the story about Paris' improvements in air quality lately (because they built bike infrastructure and partially banned cars). I had to remove nearly identical comments in the ![email protected] thread on it, for the same reason.
Well, there's also the racism
Serious question. Did I say something racist?
Now that I look again, I see that you failed to filter the logs and some other user's trash was in there.
Sorry. Didn't realize that was an option.
You failed
I jive with you, Türkiye!
To be fair, there are plenty of critical content. It's just that they use coded language to avoid the censorship. (Probably not on XHS / RedNote though? It's more of a Facebook equivalent.)
You weren't trying to challenge ideas. You were regurgitating US propaganda.
Just asking questions instead of excusing it all under the guise of propaganda. I have no doubt some of it is, but all of it?
When our government has a long history of direct lies it's safe to assume everything they say is a lie.
I don't think that's ever safe to assume and ignore critical thinking
My man, I am really curious where you get your news from.
Instead of regurgitating CCP propaganda?
The irony.
Even international spy networks are worried about American kids.
Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeetthefuckouttahere!
You wouldn't expect anyone named Mao to be political, so that checks out. His brothers Lenin and Stalin are equally apolitical.
"Homage to the fact that they're going get what's coming"
Lulz
From Americans?
America is of the few nations that has to deal with real diversity, so yes.
Not from America. America is full of hatred towards minorities.
This timeline? Where the US is nearly the last of any western nation to legalise gay marriage?
And isn't your country actively trying to work back any progress you've had in the last decade? Trans rights, queer rights, women's rights, minority rights.
Also isn't it Americans who are pushing the most for anti-LGBT legislation in African countries?
Canada is falling down the same hill when it comes to trans rights, and it hurts me, but I'm not out here saying that Canada is any sort of leader in the field. I recognise the issues my country has and I'm going to fight to fix them.
Knock off the American exceptionalism for one second and deal with the problems your country has
Didn't realise you weren't American, sorry for assuming. Admittedly I'm very jaded right now (and a bit drunk) with all the threats of invasion and with Americans either laughing it off or being all for it (and I recognise that's not all Americans but it's enough). Like, "haha, Canada will turn the USA blue!"
And fine, yeah Canada is pretty up there for LGBT rights, but when one of the main platform points (imported from the USA!) from the Conservatives right now seems to be just straight up attacking trans people, it makes me pretty worried. I have multiple family members and a few friends who are trans or non binary and the rhetoric is scary.
But TL;DR, not angry at you, just America(ns). I apologise to the good Americans, but your country is exporting a lot of bullshit right now. More than usual
American here. I would love for us to come up and take over your country.
You piggyback on our military, and I believe any detriments to Canada will be balanced by benefits to America.
Wait where's china, russia, turkey, iran, dprk, or any of those countries on this list? They were all before 2000, right? Right?
Mexico had their first black president in 1829 and abolished slavery. The US was a century too late to lead such a thing. Your comment reeks of western chauvinism.
Lmao, way to go, I'm not even Mexican. You said the US was leading the charge and included racism, that's a silly statement, so I pointed out the absurdity of it.
Mexico is culturally western, but not white, ergo, not politically western. And Australia, you're British diaspora from a country constantly attacking the aboriginals through even their votes. While Mexico can be lacking, they're the ones with a female president and abortion rights, so again, the americans leading the charge is a humorous statement.
I didn't say there were no positives from America did I? I didn't rank where America stands in how progressive or conservative America is.
I said America is full of hatred towards Minorities with no comparison to another place.
I am not wrong. There is too much of it.
So "come off" what exactly?
Decep is right.
You're basically implying the bad outweighs the good to the point that it won't give them any ideas.
The bad may be very amplified now, but I think the TikTok crowd in particular and US history skews towards "majority good"
I didn't imply that. Stating that there is too much hatred of minorities doesn't mean that America fails at everything. That is a stretch. Me pointing out that America has a lot of hatred towards minorities isn't a reflection of everything America does as a whole is inherently bad.
I didn't say that America can't have a good influence on another country. America isn't one to look to especially now for how minorities are treated.
But you are wrong. The US doesn't hate its minorities in general. The US hates the poor in specific.
GaybillionaireBlackbillionaireHispanicbillionaireMuslimbillionaireFemalebillionaireThe same goes if you replace "billionaire" with "poor". If you are rich, you are welcome. That's your only qualifier. If you are poor, you are trash. That is your only qualifier.
When I say America I mean the people of America. There are large numbers of folks, regardless of why they do, hate minorities.
I didn't say the wealthy "elite" weren't the cause of a lot of the divide. They absolutely are. No such thing as an ethical billionaire.
I'm not disagreeing with you on the fact that your financial status isn't what really separates us. What I am saying is there is still too much hate towards minorities. That doesn't change that the wealthy are a problem.
You're taking two separate ideas and merging them into one "truth."
They ate two separate topics. Just because the wealthy are guilty of the bad they are doing doesn't take away the fact that there is too much hate towards minorities in America from the people that live here.
I don't think that's entirely true and Thiel will learn that lesson sooner or later. Arguably already has as he was rumored to have been pissed about all the anti-trans rhetoric and throttled spending, which is why Elon had to step up and shell out.
Now Musk is in the driver seat with a grudge he hasn't paid back from PayPal and Thiel's in danger of finding out after fucking around.
Not significantly more than anywhere else.
I didn't compare to any place. I just stated America is filled with hatred towards minorities.
You singled it out. Which was incorrect. Hatred of minorities is common in every culture on every continent of the Earth. It's a basic human nature thing. And America isn't special in that respect. Hell when you get into large monocultures like China Etc the racism and hatred of minorities gets even more extreme and specific. In fact a lot of those hatreds have been imported from all over. The Koreans hatred of the japanese. The Japanese is hatred of the Chinese and vice versa. Various Indian sects hatred of each other. And the colorful bigotry of Europe and the Mediterranean. But one thing it is also produced here in America that is a little less common than elsewhere. Are people that actually are much more tolerant and supportive of minorities. Unfortunately they're not the ones in control but they do exist.
Singling out a problem that exists in a country I am very familiar with is a non problem. I didn't state it was special to America. I didn't speak on any other nation and their hatred of minorities. I didn't even state anything about it being part of "human nature."
I spoke on being familiar with the fact that it is a problem in America.
There is a lot of hatred towards minorities, but there's also a lot of acceptance of them that would be out of place in most of the world.
no chance of that
Ah, that trustworthy and unbiased group of China experts that are Redditors
Two sentences before this they were explaining quite clearly why chinese users might actually be bothered by the flood of american users and why they might want the ability to filter by IP region, but because some redditors speculated that the SeeSeePee doesn't want the Americans to spread their freedom-loving germs to their country then that must be why they'd do it, if that rumor were to be proven true
thanks for saving me a click
Yeah, it's always a waste of time when an article cites random people on reddit or twitter.
Lmao "rumors swirl" means "we made it the fuck up."
in this case reddittors made it up. so, yeah. very reliable
Ashley Belanger May Be Embezzling Money From Ars Technica
Just a few days after writing an article on Ars Technica about the possibility of foreign users on RedNote being walled off from Chinese users, rumors began swirling on Lemmy that she may soon decide to defraud her employer by transferring company money into her personal bank account.
😝
Lol. Lmao, even.
Jk, my real thoughts is: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
LOL
Kinda like how Chinese citizens can’t use tiktok either. Wonder why…
Every government is scared of these dumb kids lol
This is fucking stupid.
Our rulers are literally dictating who we can communicate with.
Which is why decentralised open source platforms are very important.
"May" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that title.
To bad they didn't hear about Loops. I don't use this stuff so I have no idea if it's good or not, but it's not Chinese or collecting your data so it would be worth a try. Although if 400k users flooded it I have serious doubts they could scale to meet a demand like that.
The scalability is my concern too. It took me like 8 days after I signed up before I got my login to Loops.
Gotta say I really like it, though
I signed for loops for awhile. Still no account.
It was waitlist for a while, not sure if it still is but I got my welcome email like a week later.
I was able to make my account immediately, just this morning. Not on Google Play yet though, had to download the apk manually.
How long did you wait? I submitted for an account a few days ago. Not even a confirmation email saying anything.
No waiting; the email was in my inbox as soon as I applied.
Hm... Let me try again maybe with a different email.
Loops is unfortunately not ready for 70 million new users.
Is it federated?
Not sure why we're all excited for the next centralized platform. We should be rolling up our sleeves and figuring out ways to implement decentralized protocols so anyone can their platform.
@john89 @HeyJoe Loops is federated - it's being set up by the guy behind Pixelfed.
So, I cannot inform the Chinese about Mao murdering over 70 million people who disagreed with him and his CCP thugs. What about the Tiananmen Square massacre?
People get apprehensive about that on some instances, but i totally agree with u. Alot of ccp defenders r like "BUBUT US GOVRMENT BAD TOO aarhrhh!!!!" Like bro we get it its pretty much confirmed they were doing freay deaky shit with mk utlra and tons of other sus shit but that dont make ur ccp overlords "the good guys"
The United States, being the bastion of free speech it is, has absolutely no censorship of its history.
Try it and report back, that would actually answer the question.
To the surprise of some people I guess but certainly not to chinese users.
I don't even like TikTok but I'm so happy with how hard this whole thing is backfiring. Warms my heart
Tom cotton already made threats about banning rednote as well 😂
I mean they added a translate button in the last day or two, so I infer that at least the people running the site are OK with encouraging the sudden American popularity.
Obviously take this with a grain of salt but a spokesperson of China already said they approve of this cultural exchange.
Remember Rednote is approved by the CCP so there was already propaganda on the app and they are using this time to piss off Americans about some of our poor policy choices. Obviously there is not much negative stuff of China on the app.
Basically a virtual Berlin wall around the whole of the US?
A wee quote from the author of the original little red book ...:
"the two slogans -- let a hundred flowers blossom and let a hundred schools of thought contend -- have no class character; the proletariat can turn them to account, and so can the bourgeoisie or others. Different classes, strata and social groups each have their own views on what are fragrant flowers and what are poisonous weeds".
Seemed a good idea at the time (1957?), remember how that trick evolved thereafter ...?
They recently added new translation features. I don't think it's going to happen.
Go for it. I have my doubts that there is really any mass migration of English language users to an all Chinese website to begin with. The whole thing feels like a propaganda campaign.
Idk, I went on there earlier and watched some of the live interactions, there does seem to be a large amount of English speaking people who are messaging the live creators and the creators are responding in their best possible English.
It's actually quite nice to see two different cultures coming together.
But I'm sure that if they wall off the rest of China to the US users the app will lose its shine and people will move on somewhere else.
What did the FUD surrounding Tiktok (and Huawei) feel like to you?
Hahaha
Most of my lab mates are Chinese and I joined WeChat because it was what they all used. Everything was fine except my account kept getting banned for no reason. I had assumed it might be because I accidentally turned on a VPN, but ultimately I concluded it was because they didn’t want the intermingling of Chinese and American accounts, which was literally the only reason I was there in the first place.
I been told Wechat requires phone number, do they not check VOIP numbers or did they just not block your number for creation? That's super weird.
They have (or had) a system for reactivation that involved endorsement from another account. IIRC it was QR code based, so one of my friends would scan my reactivation QR code and a few verification texts later I’d have my account back. The last time I was banned, it was after I hearted one of my friend’s posts about his graduation.
Ohh that makes sense.
LMAO
Lmao
Wechat will always be allowed overseas and is the main method of communication, but the account creation process is of course a little more detailed than simply signing up with a phone number.
That’s fair. Our own platforms are flooded with government astroturfers. They wouldn’t want those leaking in.
RedNote is really fun, haha
Also fuck me why do they know more about my country than I do???
Nobody should be surprised by this.
This migration of American to RedNote just proves how god damn stupid the Average American really is.
Well at least there's a social media that still kicks out trolls
😂
The irony in this is fucking delightful. No one wants Americans using this kind of brain rot social media. Maybe that's a sign....
Maybe this whole blogpost is just commenting on what random people said on reddit.
Oh look, that's exactly what it is.
Wait - so this is the CCP directly censoring a whole worldview from its citizens.
But I was told on several lemmy threads that the CCP lets their users consume any content, and all the censorship is American propaganda to make the great leader look bad.
This is some redditors speculating being turned into a news article...
No, this is not the CCP directly censoring a whole worldview from its citizens, this is the CCP directly allowing its citizens to see that worldview while some random author speculates based on nothing but rumors and hearsay that they might change that policy in the future.
But who needs to read past the title if it aligns with your presumptions?
Got any evidence for this censorship claim? I’ll even accept dubious screenshots.
Yeah sure it's right here in the thread you're in
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/rednote-may-wall-off-tiktok-refugees-to-prevent-us-influence-on-chinese-users/
The source of this article is “Some Reddit users have speculated” which is like the polar opposite of evidence soooooo try again.
Ugh why would you read the article? Did you not understand the assignment? So cringe.
Who is telling you that? I'm not seeing lemmy posts ignoring the great firewall.
Why? Isn't that as racist as the us banning TikTok in the first place?
I smell a double standard from the red and yellow country again.
This isn't even real read the article the source is "some guy on reddit speculates" and that's not even a joke it's embarrasing
The US banning tiktok has little to do with race.
It's about American oligarchs wanting the profits of Chinese oligarchs.
People like you are the lowliest of foot-soldiers in this game.