Manimatana Lee has spent the past five years building one of the hottest products on the internet: a group of people who safely watch her videos on TikTok.
She built an audience of nearly 10,000 followers with videos of her cleaning her home in Wisconsin while her youngest daughter napped in a stroller on her back. A video of Ms Lee dancing and washing dishes – while wearing her sleeping baby – has been viewed more than a million times since November.
Now, with the Supreme Court soon to rule on a case that could determine whether TikTok can be banned in the United States over national security concerns, Ms. Lee and other Americans looking for alternatives are downloading Xiaohongshu, an app that social media that is popular in China and little known abroad.
“How funny it would be if they ban TikTok and we all just switch to this Chinese app,” Ms Lee wrote on TikTok on Monday, encouraging her followers to join her.
Xiaohongshu was the most downloaded free app in the Apple Store on Tuesday in the US. Over 300 million people, mostly in China, use the app, where they share short videos as well as text-based posts. People flocking to it said, in interviews and on the app, that they wanted to show they did not share Washington’s concerns about TikTok’s ties to China.
TikTok, which is available in more than 150 countries but not in China, is owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance. US creators who post videos on TikTok say the app has been a source of connection, entertainment and information since it became a sensation during the Covid-19 pandemic. Its secret sauce is its proprietary algorithm, technology that recommends a continuous stream of short, targeted videos to keep people moving.
But lawmakers in the United States and other countries have warned that the Chinese government could use TikTok to access data about its users such as location and browsing history. Officials in Washington say they are also concerned that China could use TikTok to spread false information among the 170 million people who use it in the United States.
Xiaohongshu means “little red book” in Mandarin. Young Americans on the app said they weren’t put off by the reference to a book of Mao Zedong’s sayings. Many call the application “Red Note”.
“I don’t really care if I’m using a Chinese app at all,” Ms. Lee. “It’s like a place for me to escape from reality. And if it makes me feel good, I’m here for it.”
A group of American creators have sued the government over the law that could see the TikTok app sold or forcibly banned in the United States, and TikTok is paying their legal fees. Ms. Lee and another creator said in interviews that their interest in Xiaohongshu was not driven by any company. TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.
Americans on Xiaohongshu have rallied under the hashtag “TikTokrefugee,” which had been viewed 100 million times and sparked about 2.5 million discussion threads on the app by Tuesday.
Joining the app has put American users in closer contact with people online in China than they’ve ever been on TikTok. In China, people use Douyin, a very similar app that ByteDance used to develop the technology that made TikTok a worldwide hit. Douyin is difficult to access outside of China.
Lots of common tips on how to navigate the app, which is mostly created and used by people who read and speak Mandarin. Some took screenshots and asked ChatGPT to translate the posts, they said.
Xiaohongshu shows the city or province of Chinese users posting and commenting, and the country for users outside China. “We are coming to the Chinese spies and begging them to let us stay here,” said one American user. “Approved, welcome to Red Note,” someone in Shanghai replied.
By the end of December, 85 percent of Xiaohongshu’s traffic was from China, according to Similarweb, a data provider and website traffic tracker. The app is especially popular among women in their 20s and 30s, and its long comment threads have become a popular source of information for people to exchange questions about everyday concerns, similar to Reddit.
Xiaohongshu did not respond to requests for comment.
On Tuesday, more than 100,000 people joined a live group chat hosted by a user called “TikTok Refugee Club,” where people from around the world chatted with Chinese users about urban security. In another group chat, which has been viewed more than 30,000 times, participants discussed censorship and shared tips in the comments on how to avoid being banned from the platform for raising politically sensitive topics.
Under another video posted by someone who said they were usually on TikTok, a user in China responded with a meme of a cat with its paws outstretched. “I’m your Chinese spy,” the comment read, “give me all your data.”
