While TikTok has seemingly dodged an immediate shutdown, Americans continued to use and download Xiaohongshu, the Chinese social media app, on Monday. Xiaohongshu, which gained significant popularity last week in anticipation of TikTok’s potential closure, saw a surge in new users.

TikTok Got a Reprieve, but Americans and Chinese Are Still on RedNote

TikTok, owned by the Chinese tech giant ByteDance, was briefly unavailable in the United States ahead of a federal law that would require it to either be sold or banned. However, the app returned online soon after President-elect Donald J. Trump announced he would delay a potential ban with an executive order once he assumed office on Monday.https://svtoday.org/

Questions about TikTok’s future in the U.S. remain unanswered, but in the meantime, Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote by some users, is embracing its newfound attention in the U.S. market.

Over the weekend, Xiaohongshu rolled out a feature allowing users to translate posts and comments between Mandarin and English. By Monday, it had climbed to the top of Apple’s app store rankings, a position it has held for much of the past week.

Data from RedNote reveals that, as of Monday, 32.6 million posts were tagged with the hashtag “tiktok refugee,” accumulating 2.3 billion views.

Despite TikTok’s return, many users have expressed plans to continue posting on RedNote. “TikTok is back, but will I stop using this app? Absolutely not,” one user in the U.S. posted. “I’m not going anywhere.”

For the initial batch of Xiaohongshu users outside of China, the language barrier posed a significant challenge. Early adopters shared how they used tools like ChatGPT and Google Translate to navigate the platform, register accounts, and interact with other users, most of whom were in China.

“I think it’s really cool to see a completely different culture and their unique perspectives,” said Sky Bynum, an 18-year-old beauty content creator from New Jersey. “It’s something you can’t experience on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube.”

Chinese users also helped guide their new American friends through the country’s strict censorship rules, advising them to avoid posting anything related to nudity or guns.

American users, in turn, posted videos offering Chinese viewers a glimpse into everyday life in the U.S., including trips to Walmart and discussions about the cost of taking four children to dinner. These conversations often touched on topics considered sensitive in China, such as sexuality and the long hours many workers endure. For instance, in response to a video about long working hours in China’s tech industry, U.S. commenters shared their own experiences working long hours in places like oil rigs, hospitals, and fast food restaurants.

Although Xiaohongshu is widely popular in China, especially among young women in major cities, the app has remained relatively low-profile internationally. Its English-language company news page hasn’t been updated in almost two years.

In the past week, Xiaohongshu has posted numerous job openings on its recruitment site, including roles for engineers focused on “content security emergency response” and content security risk assessment. The company is also seeking interns with “excellent written and spoken English skills.”

Xiaohongshu is privately owned by Xingyin Information Technology, a Shanghai-based company founded by billionaire entrepreneurs Charlwin Mao and Miranda Qu. Since its inception over a decade ago, Xiaohongshu has raised nearly $1 billion, with investors including Alibaba, HongShan, and Tencent, the company behind WeChat.

The platform allows users to share short videos and text-based posts, often sparking long comment threads similar to those on Reddit. Like TikTok, Xiaohongshu utilizes a proprietary algorithm that curates content to keep users engaged and scrolling.