What is RedNote? Chinese app shoots to no 1 with TikTok ban looming | EUROtoday

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A Chinese short-form video app known as Xiaohongshu is now the highest free app within the Apple App Store, as social media customers look to get out forward of a possible US TikTok ban set to take impact on Sunday.

The app, referred to as RedNote in English, features like a cross between Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest, and boasts over 300 million month-to-month lively customers, significantly under the consumer base of TikTok.

Launched in 2013, RedNote is without doubt one of the hottest apps in China.

It is valued at over $3 billion and has raised almost $1 billion in enterprise funding, in accordance with TechCrunch.

In April, the U.S. Congress handed a bipartisan invoice to ban TikTok until it finds a brand new proprietor.

Federal officers have argued the location is “a national-security threat of immense depth and scale” due to alleged hyperlinks with China and considerations about U.S. customers’ knowledge being shared unlawfully with the Communist authorities.

TikTok and its mother or father firm ByteDance have denied these allegations, and are at the moment difficult the TikTok ban on the Supreme Court.

On Friday, the justices appeared skeptical of the corporate’s First Amendment arguments.

“Congress doesn’t care about what’s on TikTok,” Chief Justice John Roberts mentioned throughout oral arguments. “They don’t care about the expression. That’s shown by the remedy. They’re not saying TikTok has to stop. They’re saying the Chinese have to stop controlling TikTok.”

The “law is only targeted at this foreign corporation, which doesn’t have First Amendment rights,” Justice Elena Kagan added.

Donald Trump has sought to delay the ban, looking for an answer by, as his lawyer put it in a quick, “political means once he takes office.”

Trump tried to ban TikTok in 2020.

Observers have argued the ban would devastate the sprawling creator financial system that is determined by the platform.

“A TikTok ban would be absolutely catastrophic for the creators and the small businesses who rely on it,” Jess Maddox, an assistant professor on the University of Alabama advised CNN. “I’ve spent my career talking to creators and influencers, they are resilient, they’ll pivot, but it will be a struggle in the meantime and take a hit to them financially.”

Ahead of a possible ban, creators have additionally taken to utilizing one other fashionable app, Lemon8, with related options, which is owned by ByteDance.