U.S., Chinese flags, TikTok logo and gavel are seen in this illustration taken Jan. 8, 2025.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
Chinese social media app RedNote has skyrocketed to the top of Apple’s app store, underscoring concerns that TikTok will soon be effectively banned in the U.S.
RedNote, or Xiaohongshu as it’s known in China, is the number one free app on the Apple app store as of Monday, followed by TikTok’s photo-sharing Lemon8 app and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Many TikTok creators are rushing to find alternatives where they can continue posting videos while waiting to see what happens with TikTok, which faces a potential Jan. 19 ban in the U.S. The Supreme Court held oral arguments last week about the April law setting the stage for a ban, and seemed to side more favorably with the U.S. government’s arguments that ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok poses a national security risk.
Attorneys representing TikTok and creators argued that the law violates the free-speech protections of millions of its U.S. users.
If the Supreme Court upholds the law, third-party service providers like Apple and Google will be penalized for supporting TikTok, thus effectively banning the app in the U.S. It’s unclear whether President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, would choose to enforce the law.
Some TikTok creators are enacting contingency plans by migrating to RedNote.
One content creator, who goes by the username allieusyaps, said in a post on Monday that while “it’s OK” that TikTok could be banned in the U.S., he and other TikTok creators “aren’t going back to Instagram and Facebook” because they joined RedNote.
“Look I might not have a job in the next week, but we about to learn Mandarin baby!” the user wrote.
Another TikTok creator named Krystan Walmsley posted a short video teaching people how to set up and decorate their RedNote accounts.
“This app is so cute and it’s a lot of fun so far,” Walmsley said.
RedNote, based in Shanghai, was founded in 2013, and has increasingly challenged Alibaba and Douyin, ByteDance’s version of TikTok in China, in e-commerce and social media. It had about 300 million monthly active users as of July 2024, according to a report by the South China Morning Post.
RedNote was valued at $17 billion after raising funding in July from investors like Boyu Capital and HongShan Capital Group, formerly Sequoia Capital’s Chinese investment arm, according to PitchBook. It’s raised over $900 million in total funding and has more than 2,000 employees, PitchBook said.
Representatives from RedNote and TikTok didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Watch: TikTok viewed as “Chinese eyes and ears in Western society.”
