Searches by The Epoch Times show the platform censors content that challenges the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
As the fate of TikTok hangs in the balance in the United States, tens of thousands of Americans flocked to Chinese social media platform rednote.
However, rednote “presents significant privacy concerns, similar to TikTok” because the app collects extensive data and is subject to the same Chinese law that compels companies to hand data over to the state, LJ Eads, director of research intelligence at Ohio-based Parallax Advanced Research, told The Epoch Times via email.
“For example, it collects extensive user data, including phone numbers, gender, interests, age, browsing history, search queries, and even device-specific details such as IMEI, IP address, and location information,” Eads said.
Meanwhile, some new rednote users said their accounts have been banned, and results of searches made by The Epoch Times show the app is censoring content critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
RedNote, known in China as Xiaohongshu (little red book), mostly features fashion, crafts, and other lifestyle content that is popular among younger women.
Before TikTok briefly went offline in the United States before a ban of the app took effect, tens of thousands of so-called “TikTok refugees” migrated to rednote.
According to App Magic, in the past 30 days, the app has been downloaded more than 2 million times from the United States.
On Jan. 15, Chinese tech news website mydrivers.com reported that rednote is urgently hiring English-speaking content moderators.
The outlet published a screenshot of rednote’s recruitment advertisement, which says successful candidates would be responsible for reviewing texts, photos, and videos.
Censorship
Some new users took to other social media platforms to say they had already been banned from rednote.
On TikTok, a content creator said on Jan. 14 that she had been banned from rednote within 24 hours for “impersonating” herself. Another user posted a note on the same day saying they were suspended but didn’t know the reason.
On social media platform X, a user said on Friday that their rednote account had been banned after they posted a message saying Taiwan is a country.
Venture capitalist Sheel Mohnot posted on Jan. 19 that his rednote account had been banned permanently for “harming national interests” after he posted a image of Winnie-The-Pooh.
By Lily Zhou
