Dozens of TikTok users are flocking to a new Chinese social media app to spite the U.S. government over the impending ban on the app.
As the ban on TikTok is set to take effect in the U.S. Jan. 19 unless the app's parent company ByteDance sells it to an American company, TikTok users are turning to another Chinese app instead of moving to an American one.
"How f***ing funny would it be if they banned TikTok and then we all move to the actual Chinese version of TikTok. Like, would that not be the biggest f*** you to the government ever," user @whattheish said in a video encouraging users to make the switch.
After videos of American users promoting Rednote or "xiaohongshu" began Sunday, the app surged to the top of Apple's App Store by Monday, as reported by Jing Daily.
While some users have been promoting Rednote as an alternative to TikTok, others have likened the app to being more like Instagram or Pinterest.
Several U.S. lawmakers called for the ban citing possible security concerns over the storage of users' data. However, various users noted that the same concern was not present for other companies or apps.
"Safer than Meta," one user commented under one video where an influencer encouraged users to make small purchases off of Rednote since "they want to ban TikTok because it makes a lot of money."
"Temu, AliExpress & Alibaba is allowed in [the] US? They collect more data than all social media together," another wrote.
While some have expressed concern that Rednote could also just get banned in the future since it is also a Chinese-owned social media app, others have said that they were downloading "as an act of protest."
"United States of America. Land of the free. What a joke," one user commented. Another wrote, "OMG there are already so many of us on there!!!"
Originally published on Latin Times