A new Chinese social network is rapidly gaining popularity among American youth
While US lawmakers are trying to ban TikTok, a new social network originating from China is capturing the affections of American youth. Rednote (also known as Xiaohongshu) has recently taken the top spot in the US AppStore.
RedNote is a new social network that specialises in creating short text posts with multimedia elements such as images, videos and music.
Rednote allows users to create posts that have a 300-character limit but can be supplemented with interactive multimedia, which is why it is sometimes referred to as the "Chinese Instagram". Videos on the platform are vertically oriented, which makes it easier to watch on a phone, just like TikTok. The platform also has a built-in checkout mechanism, which has become a key advantage for various beauty bloggers and individual entrepreneurs.
The social network is currently exchanging compliments: old users welcome newcomers with the hashtag #TikTokRefugees, while American newcomers praise the policy of the wise Xi.
Interestingly, while TikTok is unsuccessfully trying to reach an agreement with the US government by moving the headquarters of its US division to Los Angeles, RedNote is wholly owned by the Chinese company Xingyin Information Technology, which is also directly linked to the Chinese government.
It is also noted that US venture capitalists have been eager to invest in both TikTok and RedNote, which has greatly helped them achieve such significant success in a short period of time.
Why It Matters
China is not pursuing a policy that is friendly to the United States, including in relation to Taiwan and in its stance towards Russia. At the same time, the Chinese government uses the "grain of sand tactic" to obtain information for its military purposes. This means that even if a person has no relation to the government or the armed forces, important sociological data can be obtained from their activity (by analysing a large number of users). After all, the precedent of the presidential election in Romania showed that social media algorithms can perfectly manipulate the mood of the people and even change the government.
Source: gizmodo.com
