It’s not even to go for a TikTok clone, it’s more to do with the avoidance of Meta products because they’re following Twitter and allowing toxicity and constantly pushing ads and influencers and MAGA. Someone decided hey it would be funny if we just installed an actual Chinese app just out of spite since we’re effectively getting censored anyway so getting censored on a chinese app to blow it all up would be funny. It was supposed to be a meme.
Turns out the chinese people on there were mostly excited to get so much attention and an opportunity to talk with americans. Loads of kids there practicing their english, and people felt so welcomed they’re trying to learn the language and everything’s subtitled in chinese+english because they want to communicate back and make their content accessible to them out of respect. There’s plenty of content there to teach chinese to the newcomers too. Bunch decided to stay because it’s just pretty nice since the lack of politics and “sensitive” topics it’s a very positive and welcoming platform for once.
The whole thing is a completely accidental cultural exchange on a massive scale, and a very rare case where americans and chinese people kind of can talk directly like that. Both sides gets to peek at the other’s lifestyle and bond over common things instead of hating on eachother. They aren’t learning chinese to use the app, they’re learning it to communicate and exchange with the people. The chinese government seems unconcerned and welcoming as an extra fuck you to the US.
The algorithm is surprisingly not really biased nor pushing propaganda. It’s happily suggesting me openly queer content (with a lack of hate comments and americans being called out for their hateful comments), they have gun content, they have a car scene, they have their thirst traps (with respectful comments), it’s really not all that different than us and not the propaganda machine the US is so concerned about. It kind of leans more left than TikTok if anything, which makes the ban even more questionable.
I do wonder though if some of those people are just ccp agents making content. Operating anything in China you’re required to be overseen by CCP so I highly doubt that they don’t carefully sift through comments.
I do find it funny that people would rather pick chinese spyware cause our spyware has too much political leans and censorship.
I’d be surprised, unless they somehow managed to train 9 year olds into tricking americans into teaching them english on a live call all basically overnight, at the scale of several thousands of them. If that’s chinese propaganda then man they sure have heartwarming propaganda. I’m sure there’s inherent bias due to culture, it’s still China. But I doubt they were prepared for this at all.
It also was never really picked with the intent to switch, the meme was to just download it and browse it a bit so it goes at the top of the downloads chart and beats Meta. The happy accident is the part where people browsed it and figured it’s pretty nice on there and turned the whole thing into a mass scale cultural exchange.
The irony in all that is I haven’t found anything sketchy in it yet. On Android they’re not asking any non-standard permissions, much less than TikTok or even YouTube both of which ask for accessing connected biometric/fitness devices. REDnote asks for the device’s ad ID. All the sensitive ones are runtime permissions it doesn’t ask until you ask for it like access the camera to post a video. I’m sure they track everything you do in-app like everyone else, but nothing that gives me the ick having installed. Facebook Messenger in comparison wants full access to telephony and SMS services, your contacts, start background service on boot, bluetooth and NFC. I haven’t pulled out WireShark yet but from a basic Android permission perspective it doesn’t have access to much of anything to begin with.
It’s literally just a random chinese app intended for mainland China, and that’s kind of what sticks about it: it’s just not really that evil. There’s no ads, no influencers, no celebrities, those are all bannable offenses even. It’s just… kinda nice and nobody expected that at all.
It’s not even to go for a TikTok clone, it’s more to do with the avoidance of Meta products because they’re following Twitter and allowing toxicity and constantly pushing ads and influencers and MAGA. Someone decided hey it would be funny if we just installed an actual Chinese app just out of spite since we’re effectively getting censored anyway so getting censored on a chinese app to blow it all up would be funny. It was supposed to be a meme.
Turns out the chinese people on there were mostly excited to get so much attention and an opportunity to talk with americans. Loads of kids there practicing their english, and people felt so welcomed they’re trying to learn the language and everything’s subtitled in chinese+english because they want to communicate back and make their content accessible to them out of respect. There’s plenty of content there to teach chinese to the newcomers too. Bunch decided to stay because it’s just pretty nice since the lack of politics and “sensitive” topics it’s a very positive and welcoming platform for once.
The whole thing is a completely accidental cultural exchange on a massive scale, and a very rare case where americans and chinese people kind of can talk directly like that. Both sides gets to peek at the other’s lifestyle and bond over common things instead of hating on eachother. They aren’t learning chinese to use the app, they’re learning it to communicate and exchange with the people. The chinese government seems unconcerned and welcoming as an extra fuck you to the US.
The algorithm is surprisingly not really biased nor pushing propaganda. It’s happily suggesting me openly queer content (with a lack of hate comments and americans being called out for their hateful comments), they have gun content, they have a car scene, they have their thirst traps (with respectful comments), it’s really not all that different than us and not the propaganda machine the US is so concerned about. It kind of leans more left than TikTok if anything, which makes the ban even more questionable.
I do wonder though if some of those people are just ccp agents making content. Operating anything in China you’re required to be overseen by CCP so I highly doubt that they don’t carefully sift through comments.
I do find it funny that people would rather pick chinese spyware cause our spyware has too much political leans and censorship.
I’d be surprised, unless they somehow managed to train 9 year olds into tricking americans into teaching them english on a live call all basically overnight, at the scale of several thousands of them. If that’s chinese propaganda then man they sure have heartwarming propaganda. I’m sure there’s inherent bias due to culture, it’s still China. But I doubt they were prepared for this at all.
It also was never really picked with the intent to switch, the meme was to just download it and browse it a bit so it goes at the top of the downloads chart and beats Meta. The happy accident is the part where people browsed it and figured it’s pretty nice on there and turned the whole thing into a mass scale cultural exchange.
The irony in all that is I haven’t found anything sketchy in it yet. On Android they’re not asking any non-standard permissions, much less than TikTok or even YouTube both of which ask for accessing connected biometric/fitness devices. REDnote asks for the device’s ad ID. All the sensitive ones are runtime permissions it doesn’t ask until you ask for it like access the camera to post a video. I’m sure they track everything you do in-app like everyone else, but nothing that gives me the ick having installed. Facebook Messenger in comparison wants full access to telephony and SMS services, your contacts, start background service on boot, bluetooth and NFC. I haven’t pulled out WireShark yet but from a basic Android permission perspective it doesn’t have access to much of anything to begin with.
It’s literally just a random chinese app intended for mainland China, and that’s kind of what sticks about it: it’s just not really that evil. There’s no ads, no influencers, no celebrities, those are all bannable offenses even. It’s just… kinda nice and nobody expected that at all.
Here’s a snapshot of the evil propaganda they’re so afraid of: https://www.max-p.me/p/2025/rednote/rednote-snapshot.mp4
Their daily life looks just like ours, similar hobbies including cars and guns and tanks and cat ears.