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US 'TikTok refugees' flee to Chinese alternative app
San Francisco, Jan 14 (AFP) Jan 14, 2025
With TikTok facing an imminent shutdown in the United States, American content creators have taken flight -- to another Chinese social media app.

Xiaohongshu, known as Red Note in English, surged to the top of the Apple App Store downloads on Monday, as users flocked to its Instagram-meets-Pinterest style layout.

"Oh, you don't want the Chinese to have our very sensitive personal data?" influencer Jen Hamilton asked sarcastically in a video sent to her 3.9 million followers on TikTok, advertising her move.

The US government passed a law last year that forced TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance to either sell the wildly popular platform or shut it down. It goes into effect Sunday.

While critics of the legislation have argued it curtails free speech, the US government has alleged TikTok allows Beijing to collect data and spy on users and is a conduit to spread propaganda.

China and ByteDance strongly deny the claims.

Users like Hamilton aren't concerned.

"It is impossible how little I care that the Chinese (have) my data," she said in her video, sharing a joke about a user that "changed their username to their social security number" so alleged spies could "get promoted faster."

"Come on over," she said to her fellow "TikTok refugees."

That Xiaohongshu's platform is almost entirely in Mandarin seems not to be deterring curious Americans.

TikTok has some 170 million users in the United States.

juj/nro/des

Apple

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