The TikTok ban in the US has taken a dramatic turn. Not even a full day had passed of the ban, which came into effect on 19 January 2025, when President-elect Donald Trump signalled he would sign an executive order the day he takes oath of office to prevent the app from going dark. But whatever fate TikTok ends up with in the world’s oldest democracy, a large number of its users have already migrated to a similar app known as RedNote and more Americans are learning how to set up their account on it.
For quite some time, the US government had been mulling a ban on TikTok — one of the world’s most popular social media platforms known primarily for its video-sharing features. The platform is owned by China’s ByteDance, whose valuation hit USD 300 billion in November 2024. Eventually, the US Supreme Court on 17 January 2025 upheld a Biden administration law that called for the sale of the US operations of TikTok or face a ban in the country effective 19 January.
It is in the last week of the ban’s effective date when TikTok users started exploring RedNote, which, interestingly, is also a Chinese app. RedNote witnessed a surge in new accounts from the US. Searches and downloads for the app skyrocketed on both Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store in the middle of January 2025.
So, what is RedNote? How is it similar to TikTok and how to get started? Here are all the details as well as a brief explanation about the controversy around TikTok.
All about RedNote and the TikTok controversy that led to it
What is the RedNote app?
Reports suggest that ‘RedNote’ is a name Americans have given to the Chinese app named Xiaohongshu, which is described by most American media as “one of China’s biggest social media platforms with 300 million users”.
Xiaohongshu means ‘Little Red Book’ in Mandarin, but the BBC reported on 14 January 2025 that “the app says it is not a reference to Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong’s book of quotations with the same name.”
The social media platform was launched in 2013 by Xingin Information Technology, a company founded by Charlwin Mao and Miranda Qu. The company has its headquarters in Shanghai.
The BBC says that it is popular in China, Taiwan and “other Mandarin-speaking populations”. It also notes that public officials in Taiwan are not allowed to use RedNote due to the alleged security risks of Chinese software.
While most media houses presented the turn to RedNote as a ‘great social media migration’, Forbes published a report on 14 January 2025 raising the alarm around the company’s policies.
“RedNote isn’t just another app; it’s a tightly controlled platform that exports censorship, reshapes youth culture, and quietly undermines the democratic ideals its community takes for granted,” says a Forbes report by Jason Snyder.
Calling TikTok “a freewheeling marketplace of ideas”, the Forbes report said that RedNote being “a Chinese-owned platform, its privacy policy and community guidelines aren’t just corporate boilerplate; they’re a statement of compliance with China’s strict regulatory and censorship laws. Every post, like, and comment exists in an ecosystem designed to prioritize ‘core socialist values’ over freedom of speech”.
The Americans are, however, unbothered. A 14 January 2025 report by The New York Times said that RedNote was the most downloaded free app in the App Store in the US on the day.
Citing a company source, The Guardian reported on 14 January 2025 that over 700,000 new users joined in just two days. In fact, app downloads in the US were up by more than 200 per cent year-over-year this week.
Such has been the wave of new users, it created a unique hashtag — ‘TikTokRefugee’, referring to the Americans switching over. The hashtag was a top trending topic on RedNote with views numbering 100 million and discussions at 2.5 million count by 14 January.
According to The Guardian, RedNote was most recently valued at USD 17 billion and is a possible IPO candidate in China. Given that almost all its users are primarily in China, the valuation is certainly impressive. If RedNote replaces TikTok in the US, it has a strong chance of breaking into the global market of social media giants.
Is RedNote like TikTok?
Yes, reports suggest that RedNote appears to be the same as TikTok. Like the latter, its emphasis is on video-sharing. It also is a platform for e-commerce, allowing its users to shop and review products. Some have observed that RedNote shows trending accounts or users based on interests on the homepage quite like Pinterest.
But details are still unclear as the app has only now emerged as a mainstream alternative to TikTok in the Western world.
However, it seems that RedNote is gaining an initial edge. According to the BBC, some social media users who have started using the platform have said they are using more of RedNote than TikTok.
“I love RedNote so far … I just need to learn how to speak Mandarin!” one user said.
If sustained, the popularity might also affect other American social media giants, particularly Meta which owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp. It will be interesting to see if Meta users in the US also delete their Facebook accounts and flock to RedNote especially after Mark Zuckerberg announced the end of its third-party fact-checking programme and a new X-type Community Notes model on 7 January 2025.
How to download and set up your RedNote account in the US
The use of a RedNote account and policies around it may vary based on country, territory and region. At the time of writing, the app was available for download in the US.
According to recently uploaded YouTube videos by new American users, the following is the process of signing up for a RedNote account:
- Download RedNote from the App Store or Play Store
- Open it and agree to the Terms of Service
- You can register with your phone number or email ID (an Apple ID in case you are using Apple)
- Complete registration using the verification code sent to your phone number or email ID
- Your RedNote account will now be created
- You can scroll and watch videos once registered
- To comment for the first time, you must enter your phone number once again and enter a new verification code (this seems like a one-time process)
Note that RedNote is witnessing a massive surge in user activity and account registration requests, primarily due to the movement of users from the US, which may result in delays in the reception of the verification code.
The language of the app is Mandarin by default, which can be set to English from the “general settings” menu. Sources told The Guardian that the company behind RedNote is trying to build English-language content moderation and English-Chinese translation tools.
As of 15 January 2025, the app was trending at No.1 in social media on the App Store. The Play Store, meanwhile, also carried a promotional video of Xiaohongshu starring French football icon Kylian Mbappé.
Everything about the TikTok ban in the US
Dark clouds began hovering over TikTok, which has around 170 million users in the US, at the end of 2019 during the first administration of President Donald Trump. At the time, the US Army and US Navy banned the use of the social media platform from government-issued devices citing a “cybersecurity threat”.
Trump began the charge against TikTok in early 2020. By July of the same year, both the Democratic and Republican national committees issued warnings to their respective staff members to take additional security precautions when using TikTok and to refrain from using it on personal devices.
In August, it was reported that Microsoft was in advanced talks to buy TikTok’s US operations from ByteDance.
The administration of President Joe Biden continued pursuing a policy of securing American data-protection interests. Biden signed the No TikTok on Government Devices Act in December 2022. ByteDance was urged to either sell its US business or face closure.
An investigation was launched by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in March 2023 following allegations that TikTok employees were spying on journalists.
Following deliberations in the US House of Representatives, an act calling for a ban on TikTok unless ByteDance sells its US operations was passed with bipartisan support in March 2024. A month later, after the legislation was passed by the Senate, Biden signed it into law.
It is this law, which gave TikTok a deadline of 19 January 2025, in whose favour the US Supreme Court gave its ruling. Due to this reason, Americans are continuously migrating in large numbers to RedNote.
But will the tide stop? It is unclear as of now, even though Trump has said he will not let TikTok disappear from the US.
“I am asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark! I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security. The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his own social media platform, on 19 January.
Following Trump’s post, TikTok reportedly started resuming its services in the US.
The company also issued a statement thanking the incoming president for “providing the necessary clarity and assurance” and said it would work with Trump “on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States”.
It is also worth noting that Trump said in his post that he “would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture” to keep TikTok “in good hands and allow it to say up”.
(Hero and Featured images credit: Adek Berry/AFP)
Frequently Asked Questions
Go to Google's Play Store or Apple's App Store and download the RedNote app. Accept the 'Terms of Service' and proceed with your phone number or mail ID. The account is created once the verification code received on the phone or mail is entered.
The RedNote app is a social media service created by a Chinese tech company, Xingin Information Technology, in 2013. It is seen as an alternative to TikTok by American users of the latter.
Yes, new users on RedNote suggest that it is like TikTok. Some have also indicated that features on RedNote may even be better. The only impediment is that the app is primarily in Mandarin, causing language difficulties for American users.
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Manas Sen Gupta writes at the intersection of tech, entertainment and history. His works have appeared in publications such as The Statesman, Myanmar Matters, Hindustan Times and News18/ETV. In his spare time, Manas loves studying interactive charts and topographic maps. When not doing either, he prefers reading detective fiction. Spring is his favourite season and he can happily eat a bowl of noodles any time of the day.
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