Around January 19, 2024 or so, when it looked as if TikTok was about to shut down immediately instead of merely soon, many American TikTokkers seeking a new place to view and create short videos decided that the next-best thing would be another app controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.
“We are gonna be monitored, censored, and propagandized by the Chinese Communist Party and its allies among the Chinese populace whether you like it or not!” they seemed to be telling Congress.
It was with this mindset of the true rebel that some three million disconsolate and disaffected TikTokkers swooped into an app called RedNote (Xiaohongshu) (“Chinese rival app Xiaohongshu is overwhelmed by ‘TikTok refugees’ in US,” The Guardian, January 18, 2025).
The app’s censors weren’t really prepared for the onslaught and have had to scramble. This may have contributed to some inscrutable decisions. When RedNote blocked the account of one Angelica Oung because of a wrongful image, “her mind started racing.” How could her innocuous post have been regarded as critical of totalitarian China?
The only picture she had posted on her account, apart from her profile headshot, was of herself wearing an inflatable polar bear suit, holding a sign saying: “I love nuclear”. What could be the problem with that, wondered Oung, a clean energy activist in Taiwan.
Was it because, at a glance, her picture looked like someone holding a placard at a protest? Was it because her costume looked a bit like the white hazmat suits worn by China’s Covid prevention workers during the pandemic, who became a widely reviled symbol of the lockdown? Or was it because in the background was Taipei 101, Taiwan’s iconic skyscraper?
It could be any of those things! And what about that “inflatable polar bear suit”? Does it have even the vaguest resemblance to Winnie the Pooh, a verboten image in China thanks to the much-remarked similarity of the physical contours of Winnie and Xi Jinping?
Somebody in Taiwan should perhaps know better than to be surprised. What about the American immigrants to RedNote?
Christine Lu, an entrepreneur based in Los Angeles, was also blocked from Xiaohongshu last week. As a test of the app’s censors, she had posted pictures that featured the Tibetan flag and the Taiwan flag—both topics that are considered “sensitive” in China. “As suspected, it’s going to be impossible to have fully self-expressed conversations with Chinese people in China via this app,” Lu said on X.
Eric Liu, a former content moderator for Weibo, said: “It is still very difficult for Chinese internet companies to conduct English censorship…censors mainly rely on the understanding of China’s political correctness that is cultivated in school and in ideological and political courses…you can’t just rely on translation software.”
Liu said Xiaohongshu’s lack of English-language capacity meant that censorship was likely to be “rough and indiscriminate…giving priority to satisfying the requirements of the authorities”.
CNN reports:
Just days into using RedNote, some have started to express frustration over the censorship rules, which go far beyond what they’re used to. It’s not just violent content, hate speech or pornography that is off-limits….
One American user, who identified themselves [sic] as “non-binary” on RedNote, was censored after publishing a post on Tuesday asking if the platform welcomed gay people. The post was removed within hours, the user told CNN….
In a separate post, a male user expressed frustration after RedNote censored a photo of his upper body. “Why can’t I post photos of my fitness and abs?” he asked, adding he had “never had such a problem on TikTok and Instagram.”
A Chinese user suggested that he try covering his nipples, as Chinese social media platforms generally impose restrictions on displaying them when it is perceived as sexually suggestive.
Both kindhearted Chinese users of the app and westerners who have had some experience with Chinese censorship are offering tips to the newcomers on how to submit.
“DON’T mention sensitive topics.” “Don’t talk about religion or politics.”
Also, says CNN, “some have openly called on the newbies to accept China’s sovereignty over Taiwan.”
