In the face of the impending shutdown of TikTok in the United States, American content creators have turned to another Chinese social media app.
Xiaohongshu, also known as Red Note in English, quickly shot to the top of Apple App Store downloads on Monday, thanks to an influx of users drawn to its Instagram-meets-Pinterest layout.
"Oh, don't you want the Chinese to get their hands on our very sensitive personal data?" influencer Jen Hamilton sarcastically asked in her video shared with her 3.9 million followers on TikTok, while advertising her move.
Last year, the US government passed a law forcing TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance to sell the wildly popular platform or shut it down. The law will go into effect on Sunday.
While critics of the law have denounced its alleged crackdown on freedom of expression, the US government has asserted that TikTok is being used by Beijing to collect user data, spy, and spread propaganda.
China and ByteDance have strongly denied the allegations.
Users like Hamilton don't care about these matters.
"No one will believe how little I care if my data is in the hands of the Chinese," he said in his video, where he even joked about a user who allegedly "changed their username to their social security number" 'spies can be promoted more quickly.'
"Come on, move," he invited his fellow "TikTok refugees."
Although almost the entire platform of Xiaohongshu is in Mandarin, this does not deter curious Americans.
Currently, TikTok has around 170 million users in the United States.
