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TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

reuters.com

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Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#521

Post by Zigurd »

slightwinder wrote: post #142
pjc50 wrote: post #6

The migration app of choice appears to be .. xiaohongshu, or "little red book". I'm guessing this won't last since it wasn't intended to have lots of Westerners using it and neither government is going to be happy with that scale of unfiltered contact between ordinary Chinese citizens and US citizens. In the meantime, it's the place for Luigi Mangione memes.

In English, it seems to be called rednote. But I doubt that it will be a real successor. At the moment it's a funny meme, and for some people satisfied cultural curiosity. But we already see the problems appearing, from the poorly localized interface, to people getting banned for reasons outside their understanding. My guess is, at the end we will see maybe some million users from the USA and some more millions from…

Tiktok is buggy, lacks undo in obvious places, and has seemingly random transient UI changes. Nobody cares.

Rednote could be a fad that fades, but technical problems won't be decisive.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#522

Post by EA-3167 »

clydethefrog wrote: post #375
maxglute wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's more... Xiaohongshu is for cosmo PRC cool kids (read: lean wealthy), and also a large ecommerce portal that targets that demographic. Not sure if the userbase is interested in... western and RoW "riff raff" shitting up the content for too long. I say this more as an insult to Xiaohongshu, I like TikTok (or Douyin) because I like seeing entrepenurs sell neon signs and industrial glycerine between my swipes.

Rest of World had an informative article about Xiaohongshu few months ago, it seems indeed to be a combination of Instagram and Tripadvisor. Chinese people that are able to travel are using it to find the "authentic" places. https://restofworld.org/2024/xiaohongshu-southeast-asia-tour...

It's also TIGHTLY controlled, with people complaining on Twitter and elsewhere that their posts are under 48 hour review before posting. The rules are also quite strict around LGBT issues etc, and not in favor.

Most of all though it's just a very silly protest, given that the "tiktok ban bill" is really a "hostile foreign-power controlled platform divestment bill" so Xiaohongshu will just be next on the block in the unlikely event that it becomes popular.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#523

Post by logicchains »

moi2388 wrote: post #370

One thing that would make social media much better, is forcing providers by law to ensure everybody sees the same content. Example: I can be on Reddit in subreddit A. You can be on Reddit in subreddit B. We would obviously still see different content. But ALL members of subreddit A MUST see the exact same topics in the exact same order with the exact same comments and likes/dislikes. This would help build up a more s…

>This would help build up a more shared “worldview” like mediums such as radio and TV did; you chose the channel, but everybody on the same channel gets the same information.

That would be a nightmare, going back to the bad old days when people's worldviews were entirely decided by whatever flavour of government propaganda their preferred TV station happened to favour.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#524

Post by amrocha »

infecto wrote: post #97
palata wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally. I find it very interesting that we tend to criticize China for their protectionism, but as soon as something out-competes US companies, it gets banned: Huawei, DJI, TikTok. Of course it cannot be said like this, because "free speech" and "democracy", so the official reason is "national security".

I cannot argue on the TikTok as strongly but I can see strong arguments on why Huawei and DJI are national security risks. Some of this is more educated guesses so not defensible with numbers. We know most major companies in the Chinese market have extremely close ties to the CCP. No doubt historically the US has gotten companies to put in backdoors or other mechanisms but I believe the CCP takes it to a next level.…

Read some of the many stories out there about the NSA, please. They have backdoors into internet infrastructure. If any country is a threat to information security, it’s the USA.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#525

Post by baxtr »

> Privately held ByteDance is about 60% owned by institutional investors such as BlackRock and General Atlantic, while its founders and employees own 20% each. It has more than 7,000 employees in the United States

That’s probably a very stupid question, but is how this is a Chinese company when 60% are owned by American funds?

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#526

Post by [deleted] »

pjc50 wrote: post #6

The migration app of choice appears to be .. xiaohongshu, or "little red book". I'm guessing this won't last since it wasn't intended to have lots of Westerners using it and neither government is going to be happy with that scale of unfiltered contact between ordinary Chinese citizens and US citizens. In the meantime, it's the place for Luigi Mangione memes.

[deleted]

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#528

Post by segasaturn »

metacritic12 wrote: post #484
pjc50 wrote: post #6

The migration app of choice appears to be .. xiaohongshu, or "little red book". I'm guessing this won't last since it wasn't intended to have lots of Westerners using it and neither government is going to be happy with that scale of unfiltered contact between ordinary Chinese citizens and US citizens. In the meantime, it's the place for Luigi Mangione memes.

for those curious why an app would name itself Little Red Book despite the association, obviously they could have been better about the naming, but they're actually not the same name in either language: The social media app Xiaohongshu (小红书) does literally translate to "little red book" in English. However, this is completely different from Mao's famous work, which was never called this in Chinese. Mao's book was inf…

The way people are talking about the name of the app feels very stupid to me, in a way I can't put my finger on. I guess it smacks of more Red Scare paranoia, trying to tie anything Chinese to scary, nefarious communists. I doubt that they were thinking of Mao at all when making the app, Xiaohongshu is an app tailored for young, wealthy, cosmopolitan Chinese as an alternative to Douyin which is more for the masses, I wouldn't call that very Maoist.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#529

Post by lotsofpulp »

baxtr wrote: post #525

> Privately held ByteDance is about 60% owned by institutional investors such as BlackRock and General Atlantic, while its founders and employees own 20% each. It has more than 7,000 employees in the United States That’s probably a very stupid question, but is how this is a Chinese company when 60% are owned by American funds?

Presumably, the relevant factor here is not ownership on paper, but who has real control via being able to tell Bytedance employees (including the executives) what to do. Which, in this case, is assumed to be China’s government leaders.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#530

Post by martythemaniak »

bearjaws wrote: post #490
jdlyga wrote: post #115

"I would literally write my social security number on a sticky note and stick it to Xi Jinping's forehead than go back to using Instagram Reels" I saw this yesterday and it's hilarious but this is the feeling right now. TikTok has such a culture of authenticity and realness and Instagram is so phony and overly perfect (not to mention ads and so many bots and spam). It's like shutting down Reddit and telling everyone…

> TikTok has such a culture of authenticity and realness I must live in another universe because it all feels fake.

You're both right! There was a good article/discussion on on this yesterday, but tldr: They are authentically fake! As in, the creators are not putting up a show with a 'real' person behind the persona, the algorithms have remade whatever person there use to be such that their 'authentic' self has become the persona.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42696691

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