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.
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.