this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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Chinese social media app RedNote, known in China as Xiaohongshu, gained nearly 3 million U.S. users in one day earlier this week as a flood of self-proclaimed "TikTok Refugees" joined, according to new data from analytics firm Similarweb.

The Chinese-language app had about 3.4 million daily active users across both iOS and Android devices in the United States as of Monday, up from fewer than 700,000 the day prior, and around 300,000 the week prior, according to the Similarweb estimate.

The influx of users has been driven by a looming U.S. ban on TikTok, used by 170 million Americans, on national security concerns.

The data suggests an even larger shift to RedNote by U.S. users this week than was previously known, explaining its dramatic rise to the top of U.S. app store download rankings. Reuters reported on Tuesday that more than 700,000 new users had joined the app in only two days.

Meanwhile, U.S. usage of TikTok declined ahead of the ban, down 2.1% week over week to about 82.2 million daily active users, Similarweb said.

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[–] davel@lemmy.ml 19 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

DON’T 👏 INSTALL 👏 小红书 — It gave me third degree Havana syndrome, which my health insurance won’t cover.

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 13 points 19 hours ago

If the CIA agents in Havana don't get Cuban healthcare benefits, they should just quit.

[–] Alsephina@lemmy.ml 36 points 23 hours ago (1 children)
[–] chaosCruiser@futurology.today 4 points 23 hours ago (3 children)

Just so you know, PRC is not a very inclusive place. Have a look at this article for more info.

[–] Alsephina@lemmy.ml 26 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Yeah they have a long way to go like most of the world; wish they'd just copy Cuba and the GDR on that.

Also you'd be better served with a specific documentary like this one instead of just lazily linking to wikipedia.

[–] wurzelgummidge@lemmy.ml 20 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

A crowd sourced encyclopedia is only as trustworthy as the editors that control the page. I wouldn't trust wikipedia for anything to do with geopolitics or current affairs any more than I would trust any other mainstream media source.

[–] cdf12345@lemm.ee 14 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

That’s why encyclopedia’s list their sources?

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[–] Arcturus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 32 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Looks like they're starting to geolock some users, so americans mostly see posts/comments made from the US

Can't people just not be racist

[–] Sagittarii@lemm.ee 33 points 1 day ago (1 children)

At least the chuds are screeching though lol

[–] blakeus12@hexbear.net 14 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

no, it's literally rednote: as in the name the official company chose

[–] blakeus12@hexbear.net 9 points 22 hours ago

even then, based

[–] Asafum@feddit.nl 27 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Honestly since I've learned about how the Chinese people seem to be taking it and really like the interaction with "us" I've been more interested in checking out weibo. That seems more similar to this and is more about communicating instead of pictures and videos of specific topics.

Just can't make an account for some reason lol keep getting errors in Chinese even though I'm using the international site lol

[–] Sagittarii@lemm.ee 23 points 1 day ago

Yeah seems like Rednote is specifically centered around lifestyle and art while Weibo and Baidu are for general use

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 14 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

Everybody there is so nice

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The saddest downvotes are the “shoot the messenger” downvotes. I find this fact inconvenient so

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 6 points 21 hours ago

i need to figure out how to make the rick & morty "your boos mean nothing to me; i've seen what makes you cheer" meme more accessible somehow for this exact reason. lol

[–] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 17 hours ago (3 children)
[–] Sagittarii@lemm.ee 9 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

If only there was a no button...

[–] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

But why would any legitimate app ask for a permission for which there is practically no legitimate use? I thought Rednote was a social media thing, not a Caller application, so why does it need to make and manage phone calls on my behalf?

What else is it doing that it doesn't need to ask permissions for? Please think critically.

And yes before someone mentions It, yes this can be used for getting a phone number automatically, but It can just prompt for my phone number (which it doesn't need anyway, unless you post), no legitimate need to ask for such a broad permission.

More to the point, why tf are y'all so chill about this? Surely this is like literally a sign of malware 101? Like I'm only a compsci & cybersec grad so what do I know, but this to me is equivalent to opening "not a virus.exe" from "veryrealmoviedownload.com". Literally first malware I got as a kid on Android was like this.

I thought awareness of this was pretty commonplace. The below image is literally a Facebook-tier meme that even grampa probably knows.

Are y'all just that desperate for a win? Sorry, good things don't actually happen in our hell world.

Is this a normal thing for apps to do these days? I don't use any other SM apart from Lemmy and only F-Droid FOSS apps so i'd legitimately like to know. Does tiktok also prompt for making and managing phone calls?

[–] Sagittarii@lemm.ee 6 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Basically every mainstream social media apps do want your contacts these days, yes. Obviously bad for OPSEC so you should avoid them if you're worried about that even after blocking those permissions.

[–] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

"Contacts" is a very very different permission from making and managing phone calls, and is prompted for separately.

The former harvests data, the latter can be used to steal money directly via the same mechanism we used to text numbers to buy ringtones and J2ME apps back in the day.

Now I'm not saying that Rednote is definitively malware and I actually kinda like some of the content I saw, which I couldn't say for TikTok (I'm way too ADHD for short form videos, it's very unstimulating), but maybe just keep it in mind.

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[–] FeelThePower@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)
[–] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 16 hours ago

Thousands of people download this shit too.

[–] macabrett@lemmy.ml 0 points 15 hours ago (3 children)

There's a "don't allow" button right there. And the message on top of it for "System Permissions" literally says, "you can say no to giving permissions and only certain functions of the app will not work"

I don't know what the issue is here. You can probably call people through the app, since you sign up with a phone number.

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