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.
  • ryper@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    122
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    21 hours ago

    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.

    • Zement@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 hours ago

      Sketchy Oligargh Billionaire App VS State-Run-Sketchy Party-Official-Billionaires App…

      Idk… Sounds like loose loose…

      • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        3 hours ago

        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.

        • Zement@feddit.nl
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          49 minutes ago

          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.

        • viking@infosec.pub
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          2 hours ago

          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.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      28
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      14 hours ago

      I can see the logic. If I used these apps I’d rather have a different sketchy government spying on my than my own.

    • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      65
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      21 hours ago

      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…

        • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          2 hours ago

          Your catching me off guard but uh sure

          • 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.

          • odysee. Similar algorithm based video scrolling but have not tried it.

          • lemmy, bet you heard of this one before.

          • 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.

      • AltheaHunter@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        36
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        13 hours ago

        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.

      • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        7
        ·
        edit-2
        20 hours ago

        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.

    • atrielienz@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      27
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      21 hours ago

      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”.

    • Autonomous User@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      edit-2
      20 hours ago

      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!

      • atrielienz@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        13 hours ago

        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.

      • 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        15 hours ago

        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!