Tik Tok’s influencer rival RedNote Soars has protested the proposed ban

As the US ban on TikTok looms, content creators are flocking to Chinese social media app RedNote to launch a reboot and, in some cases, show their disdain for the US government.

The rise was fueled by reports that TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, may sell TikTok to X owner Elon Musk.

Despite the main Chinese interface, RedNote has reached the level of popularity.

It is now the top selling product on the Apple App Store and second on Google Play, second only to Lemon8. Currently, over 60,000 RedNote posts contain the hashtag #TikTokRefugee.

TikTok will go dark on Sunday, marking the first time the US government has banned a major social media app. Instead of allowing users who have downloaded the app to continue using it, TikTok directs users to a website with information on the ban.

Questions remain as to whether RedNote can match TikTok's 1.5 billion monthly active users, and whether the US government will put the TikTok alternative on its hair.

Randy Nelson, head of awareness and media relations at analytics firm AppFigures, said Rednote's newfound popularity is another sign of TikTok's power and the app's ability to make other apps go viral.

We're seeing it happen in the West with an obscure app that ultimately isn't a direct alternative to TikTok, with a largely Chinese user base, and signs that TikTok's ‘refugees' are experiencing an alternative relationship. They were waiting,” Nelson told Decrypt.

“These consumers are moving from an app that is banned because of their country of origin to an app that operates in another country, which, if its profile rises to the level of Tik Tok, may face the same fate.

In the year Launched in 2013 by Shanghai-based Xingin Information Technology and known in English as the Xiaohongshu—Little Red Book—it is a reference to the book of quotations by Mao Zedong, the founding chairman of the People's Republic of China.

RedNote focuses on lifestyle content and product features, in contrast to TikTok's focus on entertainment.

The app has been downloaded more than 3.4 million times in the US as of January 1, 2017, on both the App Store and Google Play, according to AppFigures.

The data includes nearly 1.1 million downloads in 2024 alone, representing one-third of all US downloads.

RedNote continues to reach 260,000 downloads in 2025, an 867 percent increase from 30,000 in January 2024, according to AppFigures data. As of January 2025, RedNote will have more than 300 million active users, primarily in China, Taiwan and Malaysia.

The increase in US user numbers has prompted creators to add translated English or Chinese subtitles to videos.

Getting started with RedNote

The first thing new users will notice is that RedNote's interface is a mix of Chinese and English. While many app screens are in Chinese, registration is easy, making navigation challenging for non-Chinese speakers.

On iPhones, users can sign up with their phone number or Apple ID. RedNote has a desktop version in addition to iOS and Android. Once registered, users can set English as the default language, although some features may still display text in both languages.

Reactions to RedNote's sudden rise in popularity in the US have been mixed.

“If you press 小红书 (RedNote) for fear of Tik Tok's ban, you will immediately enter an NPC,” wrote decentralized social media platform Mind on X (formerly Twitter).

What is behind the rise in popularity of RedNote?

Rednote's rapid growth in the US may seem sudden, but according to experts like USC communications professor Karen North, the trend is not as fundamental as social media would have you believe.

“I don't think RedNote came out of the blue,” North told Decrypt in an interview. “I believe RedNote is expanding. Tik Tok is showing this campaign in the main – it's so Chinese that it doesn't make sense to oppose the US government's attack on Tik Tok.

North is a clinical professor and founder of the USC Annenberg Digital Social Media Program. She worked in the White House Office of Science and Technology during the Clinton administration.

“The idea that there was bipartisan support for an unpopular act before the election should be a sign that elected officials are aware of something serious, and we need to stop and think about it or leave it open,” North said.

On April 23 of last year, Congress passed the Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act, which requires TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, to sell its US operations by January 19, 2025.

US President Joe Biden signed the bill into law, including a three-month extension if the sale is not completed by the deadline.

PAFACA targets not only TikTok, but also apps that US policymakers consider to be a threat to national security, particularly from Chinese companies.

Privacy and social media

North noted that people in the US are indifferent to personal privacy, often saying none. However, she emphasized that privacy laws vary greatly by country. “It's their country, their laws,” she said, highlighting the differences between privacy regulations in the United States and those abroad.

Despite this growing public apathy, governments around the world have banned Chinese social media apps. In the year By 2023, several countries, including the US, European Union, Canada, and Taiwan, have banned the use of TikTok on government devices. Taiwan previously banned rednutin in 2022 due to national security concerns.

“Privacy laws are stricter in the EU. In China, individual users have no privacy. The data can be collected and stored independently, and that's how their government works. But generally most of us don't mind,” said North.

“When people say there is no privacy, they are thinking in American terms. We have to think country by country when we download apps that are governed by laws in other places,” she said.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair and Josh Kittner