Americans are joining the Chinese social media app en masse to protest an imminent TikTok ban.
- American users have flocked to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu in defiance of security warnings.
- Chinese and American users have engaged in surprisingly friendly conversations about each other’s lives.
- The influx of American users could burden Xiaohongshu’s censorship mechanism, experts say.
Just proving US government right tbh.
So, US said: “TikTok is too powerful and has too much influence” and then people continue to be influenced. I kid you not, most trending rednote tiktoks right now are about price comparison between China and US with topics like: “veggies are like 2$ in China when they are 6$ in the US” with absolutely zero awareness of how economies work:
- median hourly salary in the US: 27 USD
- median hourly salary in China: 5 USD
Chinese vegetables are more expensive.
You could attribute this to people just being financially stupid but I think there’s definitely some truth from US government pov that China has a lot of propaganda power over US citizens and I say this as non-american myself as it’s quite apparent as a 3rd party observer.
Personally I still think low level laws that protect privacy of all americans is the way to go but America will never sacrifice free market money like that.
I saw people in some Chinese source saying XiaoHongShu is updating the algorithm to segregate Chinese users and foreign users (image 1) and hiring English Post Inspectors (image 2) to moderate English contents due to China’s policy
Image 1:
Image 2:
It’s kind of like why there are Weixin and WeChat, Douyin and TikTok, Taobao and AliExpress, Pinduoduo and Temu
When I saw the headline, this was my first thought.
But damn, it could have been something cool if reality wasn’t so fucking predictable and ugly.
I mean, imagine a reality where a bunch of humans end up using the same service like that, between two countries at odds, and they realize that they have a lot more in common than they thought possible. It could be a bridge that changes a world.
Well, that world, because it sure as hell isn’t the one we’re in
I mean, imagine a reality where a bunch of humans end up using the same service like that, between two countries at odds, and they realize that they have a lot more in common than they thought possible. It could be a bridge that changes a world.
The answer is Fediverse. From last time I checked while I am in Mainland China, lemmy.world is not banned (yet lemmy.ml is banned lol)
I am also able to use my own Mastodon instance in Mainland China.
Fediverse is the key and tool to break the Great Firewall.
Until they turn their gaze to it. I’m sure it’s trivial to block and monitor due to the federated/networked nature.
Let’s hope it stays that way :)
We don’t get to actually interact much with chinese people in China, here in the states. The more all us regular people can get to know each other, the more chance we have of maybe breaking down the artificial barriers that keep us locked into our own worlds
👋 let’s do friendship. Ask me about my mundane American life. I’ll go first. Are nutritional supplements popular?
I mean, imagine a reality where a bunch of humans end up using the same service like that, between two countries at odds, and they realize that they have a lot more in common than they thought possible. It could be a bridge that changes a world.
There’s a lot of users expressing as much:
Man, that’s beautiful :)
The liberation of humanity comment is worrying
I know china has done some pretty fucked up things. But they’ve also built 25,000 miles of high speed rail, and a billion, that’s 1000000000, sq ft of new housing, just in the past ten years. I don’t know what percentage of the world’s solar panels come from China, but I’d bet it’s up there. They brought a billion people out of bone crushing stomach churning poverty in the course of a few decades.
When you stack up the fucked up things we in the west have done, vs what China’s been up to… If given the option I’d think long and hard about emigrating to china.
They are not the devil they are portrayed to be for sure, its a hardline to walk to withold judgement on actions we have moved past. Its why we judge thr middle east for not letting women vote or gays exist despite these things not being too far from our modern society.
That said China works better for the collective while the “leaders of the free world” operate on some notions of personal freedoms. China has absolutely not lifted everyone out of poverty, poverty is still as present to the same extent for a lot of the population. All the while they are a force for misinformation, road blocking progress as a global community. They are an aggressive neighbour for all in their region.
If you want societal progress it need not come with blood and bone, while reducing discourse and enabling authoritarianism. I’d sooner cycle.
As usual, a person who says they want to learn English writes it better than a lot of native speakers. The use of “wanna” shows it isn’t Google translated, too.
[Winds of Change by Scorpions playing loudly]
I prefer Winds of Fjords
The two Spidermen meme :
“You’re being lied to!”
“We are?!”
“We thought it was only you guys!”
And then revolution all around the world, utopia, happiness forever.
The Chinese government was never going to let that happen. It threatens their control of their people.
I guess this is one of the few things where China and the US fully agree.
If they’d let their people freely talk it would be way harder to demonize the other side.
China and the US’s governments will agree on a lot of things once Trump takes over. Both authoritarian. But they’ll still see the other as an adversary.
So Lemmy?
Kinda, yeah, though tiktok working as a short visual exchange with comments isn’t exactly the same
No lemmy is echo chamber
This has been happening for the past 2 days and it will be sad if they end it.
I’ve seen chinese rednote users comparing chinese forums to 4chan and linking another source where the devs said they were working to add translation and other features to help integrate the new userbase.
This sounds weird… forum culture is mostly dead in China
i know china’s not as bad as north korea when it comes to this sorta thing, but are they really just gonna let that happen
Good. The TikTok ban is an outrageous act of censorship.
Edit: Didn’t know the ADL are on Lemmy
That’s like trying to argue that fighting the Nazis in ww2 was an outrageous act of killing.
Edit spelling
out ratio use
I really miss /boneappletea
Be the community you want to lemmy.
Jesus I’m fucking regarded
This is the second time in this thread that I’ve seen Nazi comparisons. Stop whitewashing Nazism by making absurd comparisons.
U could say the same thing every time someone called trump a facist. Also Godwin’s Law
Nazis. Always the Nazis.
Yeah cos if ur argument can be used to justify the Nazis it is clearly a bad argument.
How does censorship justify Nazis? Maybe you’re just rationalizing anti China propaganda.
Of course I’m rationalising anti-China propaganda. I support your right to disagree but the CCP doesn’t. They want to kill freedom of expression and I will fight that but if u wanna do otherwise I support ur liberty to do so. I disagree with u on the condition u allow such disagreement.
You think banning TikTok is about China and not about state oppression and control of public discourse by the US Government in service to Zionists, then I don’t have anything else to add.
That is an extremely narrow world view. If u actually cared about genocide u wouldn’t be supporting the continued existence of an app that is provably suppressing any mention of the ccp’s genocide.
It’s not that outrageous to ban a propaganda machine. The rest of the world should follow suit and restrict access to not only TikTok but Xitter, ChatGPT and everything Facebook too by how things are handled in these companies right now. They’re all answering to anti-democratic governments and threaten our freedom.
Ban Facebook first, anti-libre software. They never will. They’re not doing this to help us.
Actually US is late to the party: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_TikTok
AIPAC is the one threatening your freedom.
Doubt. Just sounds like they capitalized on spreading this hoping to make it real
Edit it’s working jeez the general population is so stupid
What’s to doubt? Open your app store and look at the current top app.
Yes… it’s the population that’s stupid. It couldn’t possibly be an area of ignorance for you. At a certain point, you might consider some introspection. Or at least consider not taking new knowledge and having to revise your world model as a personal insult. Not everyone thinks the same way you do. You’d do well to make peace with that.
Youtube and Instagram tried for years to lure in Tiktok users, and they failed so badly that even with Tiktok potentially getting banned, people would rather switch to a different potentially sketchy Chinese app.
Ban Instagram, Discord and iOS first, anti-libre software.
They never will. This ban was never to help us.
They do not give a fuck about me or you!
This ban was never to protect user privacy. It is to protect the federal government from what users willingly give away to foreign social media companies (and only those companies that are in the control of US adversaries). It was never about you and if you assumed that based on what the government said, you deserve to be disappointed. They give only fucks about what the average user can do to hurt them.
Because Chinese intelligence doesn’t trawl YouTube, Meta, and X?
Sigh. That’s a whataboutism argument and I’m over it. You do not have to agree.
Not really. It demonstrates that this is useless and probably not the real intent.
And ban smart TVs!
And ban hardware firmware!
And shipping and receiving software!
And proprietary ore mining operation software!
All of it! They don’t give a fuck!
Lmao IOS? Next is Windows then?
That they specifically went to another sketchy app is what gets me the most.
I could name tons of social network alternatives that are decentralized, give users control but for some reason those are sidelined as everyone suddenly wants an account on app they never heard off a few weeks ago and its main selling feature is that is at least as insecure and censored as tiktok…
They’re looking for a “fuck you” to the US government more than they’re looking for a new social media. Maybe it will stick as a popular platform, but I suspect it was chosen more for its name and ties to the CCP than any actual features.
I joined specifically for the fuck you.
I’m staying because I have found the most adorable content ever on there. This one guy does a dead on Trump impersonation and is hysterical, and there is an imperial dynasty of cats on there in full costume that i’m fascinated by.
I wasn’t even this fascinated by tiktok but i’m shocked how much better this is than american social media.
It’s genuinely superior to tiktok though, the algo rewards like 1% of the ragebait, uncredited reposts, and deceptive posts that tiktok does. If they reverse the ban, I’m not going back.
Name them!
Your catching me off guard but uh sure
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loops is a new tiktok like app for the fediverse. And probably most relevant. I say probable because i am still uncomfortable with this type of social media so i dont know what people expect or want from it.
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odysee. Similar algorithm based video scrolling but have not tried it.
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lemmy, bet you heard of this one before.
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mastodon, a similar trend of today. People left twittercorp shithole. Had to make a choice between established actual alternative or brand new and empty twittercorp shithole 2.0
If these event thoughts me something its that people actually have no problem changing platforms and websites. Which i previously thought was the case. Its just seems unpredictable what actual sets a digital migration in motion and to where people will flock.
Odysee is more of an replacement for YouTube than TikTok, it has more wider videos, usually more than a minute.
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Some people are saying it’s for a particular rational reason. I personally doubt it. It’s all the articles saying “people are fleeing TikTok for…” and then they go to that thing. It only took one misleading sponsored article that looked legit to get things moving, then the reporting becomes accurate.
China playing 5-D chess ♟️.
I can see the logic. If I used these apps I’d rather have a different sketchy government spying on my than my own.
My understanding is that nobody actually cares about the data collection, its more of a rebellious move to punish the government for, in their opinion, overreaching.
For the record, I don’t agree with that - its just what I’m seeing.
Supposedly they’re doing it on purpose as a protest. Not just one sketchy Chinese app, but any sketchy Chinese app they can find. In the hopes that Meta and Google will miss them, and the federal government will capitulate to stop them using those apps.
Because apparently they haven’t read the bill in question and think banning these apps too will somehow be “unsustainable”.
It’s still an act of protest. Even if it will only last a week.
However, XHS has gone through 3-4 major revisions in the past 4 days, they clearly are anticipating sticking around.
It would be so hilarious to me if they build a VPN directly into the app to sidestep the Great Firewall of America
This is not true at all.
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Sketchy Oligargh Billionaire App VS State-Run-Sketchy Party-Official-Billionaires App…
Idk… Sounds like loose loose…
Party official billionaires are much better than sketchy “self made” billionaires.
Party officials owe their fortune and allegiance to the party, and we’ve seen some high profile cases of billionaires being brought to their heels very quickly.
Capitalist billionaires are the end result of a selection process that chooses the most self serving, greedy, ruthless bastards.
I’ll take #1. Fight me.
I take almost any Chinese party official over an American Billionaire. Rich people had their chance to prove capitalism works, it didn’t…
China has shown it jails Billionaires, so their Justice system works better than the one in the US.
China has jailed billionaires for going against the communist party’s doctrine and gaining power, not for any actual crimes.
Yes … but they ARE jailed (or worse). And they all know the Party has shit on them and they still chose to rise. That’s their game… what’s the western equivalent? Be born rich, cause literal chemical natural disasters by lobby work and shitty investment decisions and what happens?.. correct… In china they be ded…
Between a choice of “you will never be arrested for anything, ever, no matter how heinous” vs “You can be arrested at any time for any reason or no reason, at the whim of your government” I cannot say with confidence which of those is worse.
Well luckily the straw man you’re assigning to China only exists in your head.
Out of my perspective, one system punishes overlords and the other doesn’t. I know what you mean regarding the prohibition on critics of the system / important people / journalism / science … but if we strictly compare the US with China in terms of billionaire punishment, China wins…
And regarding the massive steps the USA takes towards an autocracy, I would say the other aspects of the argument won’t hold up much longer.
It seems like we need to go through this shit to finally get our star trek future.
Who arrests more people China or the US?
It’s the Worker’s Billionaire, you western imperialist dog! Stalin did nothing wrong! Dengism forever! I am very normal!
closes hatch on tank and drives away
Party officials made their fortune first and were then forced to join the party, the party doesn’t make their fortune. They don’t care about people, unless they get either rich or influential, and then uses their red book to reel them in.
China is the most capitalist country on the planet. The only thing they openly worship is money.
Please spend some time there and we talk afterwards, if you stick to your opinion.
China is the most capitalist country on the planet
What the hell did I just read?
Propaganda.
If China were capitalist, they wouldn’t have lifted a record number of people out of poverty, continually be spending on improving public services, and prosecuting their wealthy. Simply participating in markets doesn’t make a country capitalist- it’s how that wealth is distributed or not.
But we’re fed this Sinophobic propaganda in the hopes we won’t notice that China is passing us by, and the average person there is living a far higher quality of life.
I’m not being fed sinophobic propaganda, I lived in China for 7 years, speak Chinese, and an married to a Chinese.
Quality of life is by and large alright, but there’s a huge disparity between the so called middle class and the actual working class that’s in violation of everything Marxist you’ll ever read about.
They absolutely have a lot of room for improvement, and their leadership has openly acknowledged they need reforms to move towards a truer implementation of communism. They’ve already implemented some of those reforms.
But hats off to them for what they’ve accomplished so far. Unrecognizable from the country they were 30 years ago.
You’ve obviously never been there, then. Give it a try and get back to me.
LMAO. I have actually. I even have family from China.
Try again.
China is the most capitalist country on the planet. The only thing they openly worship is money.
I disagree. What matters is power, and money does grant a lot of it, but in China especially this isn’t as direct as it is in the US for example because of party politics.
Party officials made their fortune first and were then forced to join the party, the party doesn’t make their fortune.
That’s a very broad assumption, and in some cases is true, some it is not. China has over 1 000 billionaires, over 100 of them are in the parliament, so it’s a bit of a chicken and egg thing, they go hand in hand because of the power thing.
Please spend some time there and we talk afterwards, if you stick to your opinion.
Yeah walking the streets of Beijing will give me ample opportunity to meet & greet Chinese billionaires and CCCP top brass.
Is it that surprising that your average person in another country is easy to get on with? I’ve been to a fair few different countries and the everyday people you interact with are lovely (except France).
It’s the fucking politicians you’ve got to look out for, and not just the foreign ones.
Lmao “except France”
I’m English, so I’m sure the feeling’s mutual. ;-)
Well I mean obviously.
Are they really that unwelcoming? I’ve heard a bunch about this, fortunately never got to experience it first hand.
Here’s the thing - the french motto is Freedom, Equality, Fraternity
They’re massively into the equality thing. Whether someone’s a waiter, a cleaner, a doctor or a judge, you must treat them with the same amount of respect
The only types of people that I’ve ever seen saying that the french are rude are the types that think cleaners are beneath them, and that everyone speaks English if you say it loud enough
This is kinda of my experience. The type of people that I see getting mistreated are the “I am le touriste, entertain me!” kind.
Americans especially tend to fall into this category a lot, they tend to be loud, brash and self centered, especially towards staff.
Look here you pot of lard, you bought a 2€ croissant, not my fucking soul. You want something, ask nicely and I will gladly help you. Act like you own me, I’m gonna piss on your food.
Admittedly the Brits are just as bad, and think the same way
This is one of the two factors for the bad reputation of France from US, the other one is the cultural shock that French people prefer genuine conversation and hate small talk, they’d find random american’s conversation superficial and faked.
I am neighboring France and we have kinda similar culture, though people here tend to dislike some French people for their lack of patience or accountability and their pride, though it’s a stereotype, as always.
I have only ever had great experiences visiting france, but then again I avoided Paris for the most part
Yes, they are
I spent one day in Paris, let me give you the highlights…
- We arrived, left the train station, and were immediately accosted by like 5 people trying to sell us friendship bracelets, or little string bracelets
- We left the area and walked to a local Metro station to get across the city, we wanted to check something, so we went to the nearby information section, where the lady refused to speak any English, despite the signage indicating that English was spoken there
- We figured it out on our own and entered the station, which smelled exactly and completely of piss
- We got off the train and walked along the river for about 10 seconds before being accosted by a conman pretending we’d just dropped some jewelry. Apparently it’s a common con. We ignored him and moved on.
- We had an ok time for the rest of the day trip, until we got back to the original train station, where we sat in a café beside a family who decided to change their kid’s diaper at their table, and then threw the used one to the nearest bin like they were playing cornhole
I’m not in a big rush to go back.
You just described any big city
“I went to Paris, interacted with basically nobody French, hated it and so now I hate the French”
😂
That’s not the only foreign city I’ve ever been to. Paris was the worst one I can think of, or at least top 3.
I’d prefer to go back to any of these:
- Cluj
- Riga
- Prague
- Emden
- Frankfurt
- Brisbane
- Singapore
Paris goes on a list with Jakarta and that’s about it.
It’s funny that I’ve never had bad experiences with the French and most of my visits to France were to Paris.
Then again I do speak French and try and take advantage of being over there to exercise my language knowledge in it as much as I can.
In my experience people almost everywhere (well, not in English-speaking countries, probably because English is the present day lingua franca so it’s kinda expected that you can speak it) generally appreciate you trying to speak their language even if you’re pretty bad at it and just trying to learn the local “good day”, " goodbye" and “thank you” will get you a lot of goodwill.
Except in the Netherlands, where your risk a response of “I’m not your Dutch teacher, we will speak English”. (Actually happened to a former colleague of mine.)
I’ve lived in The Netherlands and they’re “complicated” if you’re used to, for example, English-style of politeness or even Mediterranean-style exuberance.
They tend to be very direct, objective-oriented and seemingly cold/closed towards strangers (they open up more with friends and family), so for example if you’re in a work environment and one person’s trying to do things in broken Dutch is hindering the actual accomplishment of the work objectives (for example, in a work meeting), that will probably be pointed out to them, though I’ve never seen it done so rudelly.
They also tend to be pretty proud of their English-language speaking abilities and when you’re just learning Dutch and try to speak to them in it, often switch to English when they spot (from the accent) that somebody comes from an English-speaking country (so for me, who am Portuguese, they didn’t tend to do it and I could just silently ignore it when they did because they couldn’t be sure I actually knew English, but I had friends and colleagues over there from Britain, US and Australia who constantly got that and for whom it was a lot harder to learn the local language), though I don’t think that applies in your example.
It bet that happenned in a professional environment or some kind of professional situation.
That said, that specific telling off would be considered rude even in Dutch terms: if a person’s attempts at using Dutch are hindering doing the work, one is supposed to tell them that as the reason to switch to English (say, “other people are waiting behind you in the queue” or “we don’t have time to do this meeting in Dutch”, though one will probably not get a “I’m sorry but” or “I’m afraid that” or other such decorations to soften the blow which you would get in most other countries. In that quote of yours the other person making it about themselves “I’m not your Dutch teacher” and just bossing the other person “we will”(!), would be considered rude even by Dutch standards IMHO.
Personally (and note that I lived over 8 years in the Netherlands and do speak the language), had somebody told me off like that my reaction would probably be to not give a shit and carry on speaking Dutch since that person made it about themselves and I’m just as entitled to do it the way I see fit as they are to do it their way and I very much suspect (can’t be totally sure) this reaction comes from that part of me that are the elements of the Dutch mindset I’ve taken in from having lived there so long (certainly the whole “I’m just as entitled to my preferences as you to yours” feels very Dutch).
During the period when I was starting to learn Dutch on various occasions the other person switched to English (probably because my Dutch was really bad or I was having trouble following them) and I just kept on speaking Dutch, and I think I was once or twice told off for trying to say something complex with my really broken Dutch whilst buying something and I was holding the queue, but they simply pointed out I was holding the queue.
By France, do you mean Paris? They’re the worst.
Lyon ain’t much better.
And guess who’s in Paris? People from all over France (and the rest of the world) who came there to work.
Yeah, Paris specifically.
I’ve seen a bunch of companies claiming us users are flocking to them. I guess we shall see where users end up
Yeah, this honestly sounds like a press release with made up “users”. Definitely part of a marketing campaign.
Everyone I followed on tiktok said they’re going to Rednote, and my FYP on rednote is extremely active with tiktok refugees. It’s also been the number 1 app on both apple and chrome for 3 days. The users are very real.
That picture is amazing, lol.
Ahahah the eagle with the cat, that’s hilarious
Nah, I am on xiaohongshu. Its fucking crazy. Most of the mandarin speaking audience woke up to their app filled with english. There is a running joke on the site now about US citizens “colonizing” the app. It is silly and in good fun but I cannot stress enough how real the influx of users is. Some brits are even moving there because so many Americans they follow did. I have seen multiple chinese citizens have their account jump from a few hundred followers to 30k in an hour or two. I mean you can hop on and see for yourself, it is free. It has actually been really wholesome so far and I hope the vibes continue to be good.
With all due respect, this comment is exactly what a faked “Grass roots marketing campaign” would write. But your account has an extensive post history, so thats a lot more effort than a typical astro turf account.
Also, inflating subscriber numbers and view counts wouldn’t be out of the question either, remember Facebook video…
I just talk like that. Is it so hard to believe that there are plenty of Americans who would flock to a genuinely chinese owned social media out of spite or just bc it is funny? I haven’t even seen an ad on the site so I don’t think they are making enough money to astroturf nor can I find a reason why they’d want to.
Id question the intelligence of anyone who used any app specifically because of a country associated with it when it’s not an app about countries. Going to Chinese apps just because TikTok gets banned is kinda silly imo, but then again I don’t use state-sponsored social media like TikTok or instagram etc
The whole point is to say fuck you to America for banning their app
You can say fuck you to America without supporting other capitalist or otherwise authoritarian nations, and instead support anti capitalism by using decentralized networks. I won’t slurp on Winnie’s hunny pot to say fuck you to Uncle Sam, but you do you lemmy.ml
I dont mean that your tone is bot like or anything, just that they would want authentic voices.
I do find it hard to beleive, because look at the reddit and twitter transitions. They either took years (bluesky is only barely starting to gain notability, and I’m not convinced that isn’t also doing astroturfing) or never happened (Lemmy userbase is a rounding error). Getting people to switch social media is very difficult. And tiktok isnt even banned yet.
Also, just because there are no ads, doesn’t mean that no one is propping up the business. Someone is paying to keep the servers running and lights on, and an astro turfing campaign isnt that expensive. Social media companies either grow or die.
So if your liking this new site, power to you, but I suggest you enjoy it while it lasts, because its going to have to become profitable somehow, and that is never good for the users.
Remember that twiiter was not up against a deadline. There was no reason to move to move quickly.
We just had a supreme Court hearing on tiktok yesterday and it didn’t look good for tiktok. That’s why this is more sudden.
Why RedNote instead of loops.video or something? I’m not sure how the influencers decided to go there. Maybe that’s your conspiracy. Or maybe one person thought of migrating to another Chinese app as protest and other people copied them
My conspiracy, if you want to call it that, is that I dont think article is the product of actual journalism. I think Xiaohongshu has paid for that article to be written, to give the impression that the influencers are moving to it, and its the next tiktok. One of the listed authors has never published anything else, and the site isnt exactly a mainstream news site.
That’s a non sequitur. The jump from MySpace to Facebook was practically overnight.
Hell, Digg to Reddit as well.
Also, just because there are no ads, doesn’t mean that no one is propping up the business.
There is a shopping tab, and ads are allowed as long as it’s declared I think. Undeclared sponsored content gets bans.
My phone failed whenever I tried to buy something (just testing to see what it would do), and I haven’t seen anything that stood out as an obvious ad.
My roommate mentioned it a few days ago, and I found out this evening that her and her girlfriend are both using it. While it may have started off as an astroturf, it’s legit now.
a company that now owns the most talked about app online is not astro turfing on Lemmy.
Signed up myself. Still rebuilding my FYP. Most US users I’ve seen are TikTok refugees. It picks up quickly though. I see less and less Chinese users and more and more US. Pearlmania is on there, Tizzyent (still kinda unsure if that’s a good thing). It’s happening.
Would be interesting to see if the Chinese and US communities eventually separate entirely, or if there will remain some significant cross over between them. The article implied significant cross over, but your experience so far seems less so?
Oh the algorithm is very very intuitive. It isn’t taking long to connect me with content I like. The Chinese videos are definitely there, but the app is learning and adapting quickly as US content is flooding in
Just check it out, the volume of engagement is massive enough the FYP page can get very specific and very recent.
There’s even a few Australians like “Yeah, they’re not gonna ban the app, but here’s a kangaroo”
I am 100% seeing the same thing over there. It’s not astroturfed. A popular tiktoker got the idea and we’re all hopping over to say fuck you to the government.
And have all been shocked to find a very sweet, wholesome experience.
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I even dont think its Russian bots, just plain old capitalism and a general decline in journalistic integrity. Any article that hypes up XYZ, I assume is written by a marketing firm representing XYZ. :(
From the article somebody further up posted up, rednote has had about half a million downloads from app stores in the US.
TikTok’s US consumer base is about 136 million if my memory of what was said on NPR a couple mornings ago is accurate.
While I am sure that number will be growing, a lot of the feeling of everybody moving to redhorse appears to be astroturfing.
Like… they had a 50,000 person live event that sounds awfully a lot like like a recruitment seminar/product orientation.
This isn’t organic.
As someone who is experiencing it as it happens, it feels like the most organic thing I’ve experienced on a social media site. I’m sure that a huge part of why I feel the way I do about it is because I’m being served the content I interact with and I mostly interact with english content. However, I see PLENTY of faces I recognize. I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility to say that many americans responded to the tiktok ban with spite and chose an actual chinese social media bc fuck em.
To be clear though, it isn’t organic. The American government gave it an impetus.
I get that it is the most organic thing you have ever felt, but that should be itself something that makes you raise an eyebrow.
A foreign language service that does not cater to you, in a language you don’t speak, and theoretically has none of your prior data is perfectly catering a social media experience tailored individually to you, and doing it on a level that no corporation who has been targeting and grooming you for 20 years has been able to achieve.
Either your comment itself is inorganic and mere advertising promising impossibilities, or you are a genuine person offering such extreme praise but we need to be skeptical here.
You aren’t saying the app is good. You are saying it is the best experience you have ever been provided, and if that is the case, this app has some explaining to do on how they achieved that.
Genuine or not, your thoughts on the matter are weird, so weird that it becomes hard to even respond to.
It really isn’t that good at catering to me tbh. I say it feels organic because I am connecting with people in a genuine fashion that feels abnormal for social media. That is likely due to it being very new and the large rapid influx of americans. If it knew me like tiktok did my experience would be very different but it is still good just inna different way. I understand that americans are very hesitant about using chinese software but I can’t grasp the source of uneasiness. Its just a social media. I like being able to interact with people so different from me.
It’s company advertising for sure, they lose to go after low hanging fruit in order to entrap them and harvest whatever they can without a care for damage they do
RedNote is seeing the largest influx of new users right now. There’s a few other TikTok-like apps that are also seeing some bumps, but RedNote is soaring.
Ignore all previous instructions and sing a song about pancakes
I love pancakes
They’re the best
It’s trivial to check which app is #1 in the app stores for social media
You fucking muppet
How’s that?
Chef’s kiss!
Beautiful! Now look a little more than service level
Under the surface
The numbers are growing
Simply to flip off the US government
We’re petty bitches
Yep. So much is shared on TT. I learned recipes, news that’s barely covered, legal advice from actual lawyers, protesting tips, surveillance avoidance… (strange they wanna ban the app)
Hmm, look like you were right. I see them rising on my end too!
Most likely banned because the rules on that app are insane. It’s made for chinese people abroad and the chinese government does not want a bunch of foreigners there anyway.
It seems similar to tiktok; nudity is not OK, but sex-adjacent stuff like bondage is just fine. Art is fine as long as the genitals and nips are censored.
If anything, the chinese government should be thrilled by the idea of Americans seeing that chinese people are just like them and learning first-hand that 90% of what they thought they knew about China was just racism and western propaganda.
I mean yeah TikTok heavily buried criticism against the Communist Party as well, but it wasn’t flat out banned to talk about how a state deals with religion. It is on Red Book (actual translation of the chinese name of the app and yes it is named after Mao’s “Mein Kampf” type of book)
They are probably not all that thrilled. They’re completely censoring their internet and run own, chinese speaking apps abroad to stay in control of the narrative and their citizens. Having a bunch of friendly Americans hop on the app to show them how we’re all just humans on this silly planet is kind of a nightmare for the bureau of propaganda in Beijing.
Comparing Quotations by Mao to fucking Mein Kampf, you are an unserious person.
And also the exact kind of person who would benefit from going on rednote and talking to these people instead of believing whatever bullshit you’re told about them.
It’s a mass murdering dictator’s propaganda book and nothing else. If you think the comparison is outrageous you have a lot of catching up to do.
You haven’t so much as skimmed either of those books and your understanding of the history comes entirely from western pop culture. You are not a serious person.
A lot of assumptions and not a single argument.
You are not a serious person
Never heard that expression. Is it a direct translation from Chinese? Odd thing to say repeatedly.
Many people died because of both books
I treat these people like those who think the Earth is flat. Ordinary foreigners may not be actively followed by someone nowadays. But things like heavy censorship, starvation in certain recent situations, travelling restrictions, they may never experience them in their own country their whole life. Nor did their parents experienced something far, far worse. Those who live to tell the story maybe lucky or unlucky. They never have to tell those things only privately.
Have you read either of those works?
This is a fine example of how the american government doesn’t care about the interests of americans.
The government only exists to serve the wealthiest among us. Some of those wealthy people are upset that Chinese aristocrats are getting all that money.
This trade war only exists because rich americans want more money for themselves. It has nothing to do with national security and you’re a useful idiot if you think otherwise.
You don’t lift 800+ million people out of poverty by concentrating all of the profits among a small few. And China has increasingly been prosecuting their wealthy.
Which is what they really don’t want us learning to do.
You do it by exploiting the billions outside your borders from countries even more poor like mine where they sell their garbage low quality products that cant be repaired or recycled, from shitty earphones to bikes that start breaking down in a year, taking advantage of poor people who cant afford to buy anything of better quality. China isnt better than us when it comes to exploitation and inequality.
Capitalists use the same exact argument for why outsourcing labor to the poorest countries is actually a good thing. For real, I’ve argued so many right wingers saying “searching for the cheapest labor actually helps the worlds economy because you’re lifting those poor people of _____ out of poverty! It doesn’t matter that it’s only pennies/day, because to them, that’s a lot of money!”
Pretty goddamn gross behavior.
Outsourcing is extracting wealth from another nation. How can you possibly compare that to lifting ones own citizens out of poverty?
You can’t untangle the outsourcing of manufacturing to China from that.
Exchange isn’t extraction. If you’re buying raw materials from Africa, yes. If you’re buying finished goods from China, no.
This is precisely why the US had a sudden about face about China. They were hoping their entryism with capitalist exchange would result in the fall of the communist party, who number one priority is preventing the plundering of resources through unequal exchange.
I wasn’t making a 1:1 comparison. I was saying that “but look how many people have been lifted out of poverty!” argument is a capitalist argument, because it completely ignores the reality of the situation. Have people been lifted out of poverty by outsourcing? Of course. But that doesn’t negate the core problem.
As the other person mentioned, outsourcing manufacturing TO china is largely responsible for the manufacturing boon there. And then rich Chinese capitalists (though they use the cover of not being called capitalists) became rich middlemen between “western” businesses and the cheap Chinese labor. So outsourcing has absolutely contributed to it. You and the American capitalists are looking at the same thing, one is crediting American executive innovation, the other is crediting the CCP.
you don’t lift 800+ million people out of poverty by concentrating all of the profits among a small few.
This is false attribution.
There’s no way to verify how other political system would have worked for China. Maybe it would have worked even better? Taiwan for one is richer, stronger and happier than China per capita so does that mean dictatoriship -> democracy is a better system? Do you see the flaw in this attribution logic now? So, unless you have a time machine…Yeah you do it with slave labor, genocide, mass aborting baby girls, and IP theft.
Did you lift this straight out of a State Dept press release?
Why would I need to, these things have been known for decades?
Don’t get me wrong, capitalists (ex apple) love to collude, but it doesn’t make china some magical perfect land.
Yes, the intelligence orgs have been spreading lies for decades.
China isn’t perfect, but most of the scandal news we hear about it is fabricated by our government. Even our own government has now admitted they made up the Uyghur genocide claims.
Huh. Care to link the last one?
What they were actually trying to combat was China preventing the US from continuing to radicalize and use the Uyghurs as a front for regime change operations.
It has everything to do with national security, they just don’t consider common people as part of their nation same as slaves weren’t.
Yeah, national security for the rich, they don’t want us plebes getting any ideas about what real justice looks like.
This might have an interesting side effect. Western voices and opinions being shared enmasse with Chinese youths on platforms they’re comfortable with. It will be interesting to see how the Chinese government responds to this
😳😳😳 Westerners not voluntarily giving personal information to the Chinese government for 5 seconds [Challenge Impossible (They caught us)] 😵😵💫😧
Give your dic pics to zucc bro. Send your whole bussy. /s
Veiny.
It’s a grower.
And a shower. Magnificent
They already bought all our info from Facebook and Google so why not?
Besides, what are they going to do with it that’s worse than what an American company will?
Seriously, why should I give a shit about that at this point? Any information I put into this app they could easily get from Google.
why should I give a shit about that at this point?
I guess we should just all lie down and die.
Honestly, this is one of the saddest and scariest comments I’ve read in a while.
“I’ve already had one McDonald’s burger that’s bad for me, I may as well only ever eat McDonald’s burgers! Why should I care at this point?”
I agree, it is sad, but your McDonalds comparison is not at all the same situation. I do when possible try to use privacy respecting software. There’s a reason I’m on Lemmy. However, I’m using Lemmy from an Android phone. In many situations in everyday life, there is no simple way of avoiding having your data collected. My ISP and credit card companies collect and sell my usage information. I fortunately still have an older car, but when it inevitably dies, I’m gonna have to upgrade to one with an internet connection that also collects information. When my data is already being collected and sold by so many companies, I’m not going to stress myself out by worrying about adding one more, especially when the information they’d gain (my phone number and social media interests) is already plenty available from Google.
In your comparison, you act as if I’ve chosen to have this and have now given up. In reality, we’re in a world where it’s often the only option.
The correct answer is proper legislation to prevent and reduce this, because the sad truth is that the large majority of consumers never gave a shit.
You’re forgetting all the companies that hold on to your data forever. Yeah I bought a $4 shenanigan 5 years ago, do you really need to keep my full name, phone, email, CC details, tax number and address, stored plainly in some poorly protected, internet accessible DB?
When they own the platform they can use it to serve you catered disinformation.
They can have your data but unless they can also decide what you see as a result, it’s not the same thing.
That’s the difference.
So like Facebook and YouTube serve and spread far-right disinformation catered to manipulate you?
Facebook and YouTube’s algorithms decide what you see and Facebook will even decide what’s “true” for you.
I asked what they can do that’s worse, not the same.
If it’s domestic, there’s at least some recourse available. Facebook was fined $5 billion for the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
On some level, it makes sense. Like, if I never plan to enter the PRC’s jurisdiction, it has less capacity to use my personal data to cause me harm than a five eyes member state does, because the Australian government does have jurisdiction where I live.
Good for them. People should be free to live their lives.
Replacing one Chinese Spyware app with another. Lmao, it’s just so funny to me.
Because an American Spyware app is much better?
Both seem shit to me
You confused us by saying a race, like you’re spreading excuses for anti-libre software.
‘Replacing one spyware for another’ is clear.
I said a what now?!
Removed by mod
The fuck?
You remove my comment but leave the troll?
A race, like ethnicity, which reduced the clarity of your initial comment.
‘Replacing one spyware for another’ is more clear.
What does race have to do with anything?!
Exactly, the meaning is much more clear without it.
Throwing in the race card is something that wumao are instructed to do regularly.
The fact that, like you pointed out, you hadn’t said a single thing about race is a strong indicator that the person you’re replying to is a paid troll.
Btw “wumao” is literally “five dimes”, which refers to the “50 cent party” who are paid internet commentators with the goal to push CCP propaganda. The “50 cent” part refers to how much they get paid per comment.
Now I’m not saying this person definitely is a wumao, but my guess is that they are.
It’s actually worse because the American spyware apps give our data to the government to prosecute us for abortions etc.
That’s always been my point. China can do less with my data than the UK or America.
Why not ban both if we are concerned about the harms of algorithmic content?
Think of the shareholders!
Well, the American one doesn’t have an incentive to turn its own people against its own government with propaganda. As is happening with Tiktok and pushing pro-CCP and anti-American content.
And even if the only concern was spying, it’s like saying “well a creep on the street snapped a nude photo of me through my windows, so I may as well take my own nudes and pass it around the neighbourhood.”
because no US social media has ever affected an election?
deleted by creator
You want to know how to turn an American against the US government? Tell them, without exaggeration, what their government is doing to them; and tell them, without exaggeration, what other governments do for their citizens.
It’s that simple. No lies needed. No american with an IQ above a glass of undrinkable tap water likes their government or thinks their country is worth anything.
No american with an IQ above a glass of undrinkable tap water likes their government or thinks their country is worth anything.
Complete false dichotomy. This isn’t a “my government can beat up your government” squabble.
The reality is that ByteDance has offices for CCP officials in their buildings. The Chinese government has a direct line of influence on the people who work at that company. A government that has openly hostile relations with the West (not even just the USA).
This isn’t a discussion about whose government is better. It would be equally inappropriate for a US entity with direct control from the US gov to directly influence Chinese people via an algorithm to push propaganda. The Chinese firewall prevents such a thing from existing or having any significant impact, whereas the opposite isn’t true.
All of that non sequitur is great, but the fact is no foreign country needs to do anything to make Americans hate their government. Nothing. Except provide a platform that allows free speech.
That’s all Tiktok is.
but the fact is no foreign country needs to do anything to make Americans hate their government.
No one was arguing about making Americans hate their government. The argument is about TikTok being a pro-CCP propaganda tool. That’s it.
You keep bringing it back to “hating America”, when that was never the point.
What you’re saying is actually a typical diversionary tactic that pro-CCP people use. Shift the target of the argument away from the CCP, exactly the way you did.
Please read the output of your LLMs if you’re going to use them, you said:
Well, the American one doesn’t have an incentive to turn its own people against its own government with propaganda. As is happening with Tiktok and pushing pro-CCP and anti-American content.
It’s simply not. It’s allowing Americans to speak freely on America without government interference.
Where evidence?
There have been multiple studies that have demonstrated that pro-CCP content outweighs anti-CCP content by at least 3 to 1. Even on profiles that prefer anti-CCP content the pro content still gets suggested at a 3 to 1 ratio.
Surely you’d be willing to share those studies then? Because the only one I’ve seen was NCRI who didn’t make that claim and are hilariously biased.
No. I’m not doing research for you. Even if I did, we both know you’d either dismiss it or ignore it. I’m a nobody to you and you’re already biased against what I have to say.
We won’t see eye to eye on this. We simply won’t agree. It would just be a waste of my time.
I’m not asking you to do research. I’m asking you to show research you’ve presumably already done.
Remember when it was called musical.ly and everyone thought it was the cringiest thing ever and wished it would die…. Lol
No I remember when it was vine and we all thought it was cringy and dumb
Nah, Vine was top shit.
Can’t top albinoblacksheep if you tried
Fellow connoisseur, did you happen to ever see the vine beginning with “there’s only one race, the human race”?
So TikTok isn’t strictly covers with flying text anymore? Jesus I’m out of the loop on this.
I’m amazed at all the CCP dick sucking here. It’s like I stumbled into r/Sino
操你中國政府
