The fate of TikTok seems to be sealed for the moment. The Biden administration firmly announced the social media giant would have to look to the Trump administration for help after tomorrow’s ban likely will see the app go dark.
State media hailed RedNote's success among American "TikTok refugees" as a repudiation of U.S. government "demonizing" of China's development.
Whether or not the ban holds for very long, the many unique communities on the platform will inevitably scatter across myriad smaller apps — and many will disappear altogether.
This looming TikTok ban has over 170 million US TikTok users (who have named themselves "TikTok Refugees") scrambling for a replacement app. And that's what these users have seemingly found in Xiaohongshu or RedNote — a Chinese-owned social media app that has already risen to #1 on the US App Store.
Trump said in an NBC News interview that he was considering granting TikTok a reprieve after he is sworn into office.
The influx of more than 700,000 new users has been driven by a looming U.S. ban on TikTok, used by 170 million Americans, on national security concerns.
Officials at TikTok said they could not be expected to comment on pure fiction when asked about rumors China was looking into having Elon Musk acquire the social media platform.
After years of rejecting the idea of a sale of TikTok’s US assets to an American buyer in order to avert a ban, China and ByteDance may have found an owner they could live with: Elon Musk.
ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, is required to sell the app to a U.S.-based buyer or face a nationwide ban.
Shanghai-based Xiaohongshu, or RedNote as it is known in English, is a Chinese social media platform growing in popularity as an alternative to TikTok, but with the same security risks.