Due to the possibility of a TikTok ban in the USA, users searched for alternative platforms. The application that stood out in this search was the China-based social media platform RedNote (Xiaohongshu in Chinese). Xiaohongshu, which means “little red book”, quickly rose among the most downloaded applications of the Apple App Store, gaining more than 700 thousand new users in just a few days.
According to Reuters, this situation indirectly benefited not only RedNote but also other applications. For example, language learning platform Duolingo announced a 216 percent increase in the number of users starting to learn Mandarin Chinese in the United States compared to last year.
Although RedNote offers an English interface, the majority of the content on the platform is in Chinese. For this reason, it is thought that users’ efforts to learn Mandarin Chinese are aimed at being able to interact more effectively with the content on the platform. According to TechCrunch’s analysis, statistics released by Duolingo show a huge increase in new users learning Mandarin around the same time as RedNote’s rise in popularity.
Duolingo drew attention to Mandarin lessons by sharing videos with the hashtags #rednote and #tiktokban on TikTok. In one of these videos, someone carrying the platform’s green owl mascot offers Mandarin lessons for beginners and says, “Welcome to TikTok refugees.”
On the other hand, RedNote’s existing Chinese users also benefit from the cultural exchange that occurs with the presence of American users. Chinese users are teaching newcomers the Gen Alpha generation’s American slang expressions and TikTok trends. “My shayla” and “Raw. While expressions such as “Next question” attract the attention of Chinese users, this cultural interaction also sets the stage for humorous dialogues. For example, some Chinese users joke that Americans are “Chinese spies” and claim that they will give their data to the Chinese government.
Time is running out for TikTok in the USA
ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, must sell the app’s assets in the US by January 19 in order to meet the demands of the US government. Otherwise, TikTok may be shut down completely. This process creates great uncertainty for both TikTok users and alternative platforms. In contrast, applications such as RedNote and Duolingo continue to take advantage of this situation and expand their user base.
These developments show that the TikTok ban deeply affects not only social media dynamics, but also the areas of language learning and cultural interaction.