Chinese Media Celebrates U.S. Tiktok Addicts Flocking to Censor-Happy ‘RedNote’ App

The Chinese state propaganda newspaper Global Times celebrated a surge in American users downloading the Chinese social media application Xiaohongshu (“Little Red Book”) in anticipation of a potential ban on Tiktok in the United States.

“Little Red Book,” which the Chinese government is referring to as “RedNote” in an apparent attempt to distance it from its blatant reference to communist mass murderer Mao Zedong, has experienced a near-overnight explosion in popularity among Americans calling themselves “Tiktok refugees” – users addicted to the micro-vlogging app who are seeking a Chinese alternative in the event the Supreme Court upholds a ban on the application.

Nearly three million American users joined Xiaohongshu on Thursday alone, according to Reuters.

The Supreme Court is mulling a complete ban on Tiktok, owned by the Chinese company Bytedance, due to its close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and its potential to be used as a foreign propaganda tool, making it a national security threat to the United States. The Chinese government has conducted extensive research on what it calls “information-driven mental warfare” and its military has repeatedly emphasized the importance of online propaganda directed at American youth.

“Younger [People’s Liberation Army] propagandists increasingly realize the popularity of short videos online, and TikTok is the best example of this so far,” a Communist Party journal unearthed by Breitbart senior contributor and president of the Government Accountability Institute Peter Schweizer surmised.

Without an emergency intervention by the Supreme Court, America will ban the application by January 19; Bytedance was given time to sell its American operations to a domestic company but chose not to.

Bytedance operates a Chinese version of Tiktok, called “Douyin,” known for promoting academic, news, and other intellectual content, in sharp contrast to the viral dances, dangerous “challenges,” and other questionable content on Tiktok. Douyin only allows Chinese users on its platform, however, which has left American Tiktok users resorting to Xiaohongshu.

The Global Times proclaimed the millions of new American Xiaohongshu users as a victory for organic people-to-people exchanges between China and America – notably omitting in its content that China bans its citizens from using American social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. In a column on Friday, the state propaganda outlet urged American officials to download Xiaohongshu and abandon suspicious stances towards the genocidal Communist Party.

“The harm caused by Washington’s bias in its China policy is real, but so too is the healing power of increased people-to-people exchanges,” the Global Times claimed. “Now, ‘RedNote’ has become a message board for the people of China and the US, reflecting the simple wish of both countries and the international community for a world of peace, prosperity, and universal security.”

The Times highlighted impressionable young Americans using the Mao-inspired app who claimed they found that “the friendliness and openness of Chinese users dissolve their unease.”

“From sharing memes and ‘cat taxes’ to helping with homework and balancing budgets, the enthusiasm for mutual exchanges between netizens of both countries is rising rapidly,” the Times mused. “Conversations are transitioning from lighthearted to profound, causing the ‘information cocoon’ to be squeezed into its cracks.”

The “cat tax” is a joking term used on Xiaohongshu in which Chinese users demand that Americans share cute photos of their cats as a “tax” paid to be welcomed to the platform.

The Global Times concluded that “demonizing China’s development and using it as a scapegoat for Washington’s ineffective governance is a narrative that is increasingly losing its ability to deceive in light of evident truths.”

The “evident truths” Xiaohongshu allows users to share do not include any information of the atrocities committed by its Chinese communist overlords. Americans downloading the application have reportedly been flooded with propaganda denying the reality of the Uyghur genocide in occupied East Turkistan, where dictator Xi Jinping has used concentration camps and mass forced sterilization campaigns to suppress the indigenous Uyghur population and replace it with Han Chinese people. Users attempting to address the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre also found their posts rapidly censored.

Xioahongshu’s policies ban any opinions that run afoul of the “correct view of history,” according to the Communist Party, and requires users to follow rules that including abiding by the “core values of socialism” and promoting “collectivism and socialism.”

The application has also moved rapidly to suppress any LGBTQIA+ content on the platform, which was prevalent on Tiktok. Chinese users themselves have begun mocking Americans on the application, asking up-front that new users suppress their queer identities for the Chinese audience.

In a separate article, the Times celebrated “Tiktok refugees” as “brave explorers” who were doing the diplomatic work that American officials rejected. The state outlet particularly highlighted leftist American comments on Xiaohongshu celebrating China and denying the reality of Beijing’s threats to the United States. One user, for example, was quoted as saying that America “vilifies China” and that Tiktok users rejected that vilification as “ridiculous.”

“So as a protest, and with much humor we collectively decided to join RedNote and willingly give our info to China to show our government we don’t care and challenge them,” the user, identified as “Amy,” said.

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