As the United States TikTok ban looms closer users are finding new apps to migrate to.
This includes Rednote, or Xiaohongshu as it's known in China, and TikTok’s photo-sharing app Lemon8, which are occupying the top two spots on the U.S. app store.
TikTok creators are pushing to find alternatives before the 19 January U.S. ban. The Supreme Court held oral arguments last Friday and seemed to side with the U.S. government’s assertion that ByteDance’s ownership of the app poses a national security risk.
Those advocating for TikTok argue that the law violates the free-speech protections of millions of its U.S. citizens.
If the Supreme Court upholds the law or TikTok isn’t bought out by an American company, service providers like Apple and Google will be penalised for supporting TikTok.
However, due to his recent support of the app, it is unclear whether President-elect Donald Trump will uphold the law once he enters the White House on 20 January.
TikTok users like allieusyaps have said “it’s OK” that TikTok is being banned and are moving to RedNote instead of “going back to Instagram and Facebook”.
Despite the mass migration, the RedNote trend could be short-lived due to it being a Chinese-owned company. This means that under the same law passed by Congress to get rid of TikTok, RedNote could also be subject to a ban.
At the time of writing, RedNote is the second top app on the Apple app store in Australia.
As RedNote rises in popularity, stocks are up 499.4%. The app was valued at over $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.