TikTok, RedNote, and the Broken Promise of the Chinese Internet

Chinese social media app RedNote is full of cute and heartwarming moments after around 500,000 US users fled there last week to protest the US government’s impending ban on TikTok.

Calling themselves “TikTok refugees,” these users paid the “cat tax” to join RedNote by posting photos and videos of cats. They answered many questions from their new Chinese friends: Is it true that in rural America, every family has a large farm, a huge house, at least three children and several large dogs? That Americans have to work two jobs to support themselves? That Americans are bad at geography and many believe that Africa is a country? That most Americans have two days off a week?

The Americans also asked their new friends questions. “I heard that every Chinese person has a giant panda,” wrote an American RedNote user. “Can you tell me how can I get it?” One response came from someone in the eastern province of Jiangsu: “Believe me, it’s true,” the person deadpanned, posting a photo of a panda doing laundry.

I spent hours scrolling through these so-called cat tax photos and laughed at the cute and earnest responses. That’s what the Internet is supposed to do: connect people. More importantly, RedNote demonstrated how competitive a random Chinese social media app can be from a purely product perspective.

With access to an online population of a billion and an army of hardworking and resourceful engineers, China’s internet platforms are world-class in their design, functionality and user experience – as demonstrated by TikTok and now RedNote, or Xiaohongshu in Chinese. .