RedNote

RedNote, Chinese e-commerce and lifestyle app that gained unexpected popularity when a ban of the popular short-form content app TikTok seemed imminent in the United States. The large number of “TikTok refugees” who made their way onto RedNote led to it briefly holding the top spot in both Apple’s and Google’s U.S. app stores. As of January 2025 the company was valued at about $17 billion.

History and features

RedNote was created in 2013 by Shanghai-based entrepreneurs Miranda Qu and Charlwin Mao as a tourism app. The app soon became a Chinese alternative to the American social media platform Instagram, which is banned in China. RedNote is often described as a “lifestyle platform,” where users can share and watch short-form content. Its names, RedNote and Xiaohongshu (“Little Red Book”), are a sly reference to the widely distributed propaganda book of quotes from Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong.

In December 2022, public employees in Taiwan were banned from using RedNote on official devices because of concerns about the app’s safety. Furthermore, RedNote’s terms and conditions are written in Chinese, making it difficult for non-Chinese users to understand how much of their data is being collected and how it is being used.

TikTok ban and rise in popularity

In April 2024 the U.S. Congress passed foreign aid legislation that included provisions relating to TikTok, and it was signed into law by Pres. Joe Biden. The law stated that an application controlled by a foreign adversary, like TikTok, could not be updated, maintained, or distributed by any app store in the United States, effectively banning such applications for future users. This meant that TikTok would be banned in the United States if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, did not sell its stake in the company within a year. TikTok executives challenged the law in court, saying that it violates Americans’ First Amendment rights to free speech. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, upheld the law in January 2025, and it was scheduled to go into effect on January 19, the day before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

In the meantime many TikTok users flocked to RedNote, which gained more than 700,000 users in January 2025. One user explained that this was, in part, to spite the U.S. government for meddling in the private sector. The app quickly worked to accommodate new English-speaking users, adding English translation services and subtitles to its interface. It was also surmised that RedNote would go public, though some analysts remained skeptical about its potential for international growth.

The app’s users, largely Chinese citizens, welcomed the American users with a bemused attitude. The cross-cultural exchange fostered communication about Chinese laws and practices, though there were limitations. For example, when an American user asked a question about laws in China versus laws in the special administrative region of Hong Kong, a Chinese user responded, “We prefer not to talk about that here.”

TikTok shut down on January 18, 2025, but services were gradually restored by the following morning. The official TikTok policy account posted on X about the short-lived ban, thanking Trump for “providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans.” On January 20, 2025, the day of his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order that provided TikTok a 75-day extension, or until April 5, 2025, to find alternative owners, suggesting that a U.S. entity take 50 percent ownership of the app in a compromise. Some people thought that after the extension RedNote’s user base would soon rival TikTok’s. Many users, however, stayed on TikTok, and RedNote’s growth plateaued.

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On April 4, 2025, Trump postponed the TikTok ban for an additional 75 days. Although an agreement had been reached between ByteDance and the U.S. government, ByteDance pulled out of the deal because of controversy surrounding a 34 percent tariff that Trump intended to place on Chinese imports. At its peak RedNote had about 3.4 million active American users per day. In March 2025 RedNote averaged about 800,000 daily active users from the United States, which, although lower than January, still vastly surpassed American users from before the TikTok ban would have taken effect.

TikTok vs. RedNote

RedNote and TikTok are different in several key ways. RedNote was not designed for English speakers, whereas TikTok was created for an international user base. RedNote offers just one version of the app, whereas some Chinese-owned apps have separate versions for mainland China users and for international users. For example, TikTok is the international version of the Chinese app Douyin.

One of RedNote’s prominent features is a content algorithm that de-emphasizes accounts that users follow and instead focuses on users’ interests. Some app users say that this algorithm may lessen the impact of popular accounts and influencers, enabling smaller creators to be featured alongside bigger creators. TikTok’s algorithm utilizes users’ information to recommend videos similar to other videos that users have already watched. The TikTok algorithm also tends to show users more material from creators with whom they have already engaged. TikTok allows users to watch one video at a time, whereas RedNote’s main feed displays multiple videos and photos on the same page.