Comment by hintymad

Comment by hintymad 3 months ago

34 replies

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> This is going to be an interesting experiment: A widely used social network across the world WITHOUT american content.

China has had such social networks for a long time. Their Weibo and Xiaohongshu are two prominent examples. Weibo started as a copycat of Twitter, but then beats Twitter hands-down with faster iterations, better features, and more vibrant user engagement despite the gross censorship imposed by the government.

My guess is that TT can still thrive without American content, as long as other governments do not interfere as the US did. A potential threat to TT is that the US still has the best consumer market, so creators may still flock to a credible TT-alternative for better monetization, thus snatching away TT's current user base in other countries.

myrloc 3 months ago

Are Weibo and Xiaohongshu used widely outside of China? Given the names alone I'd imagine their adoption is fairly limited to China.

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  • bryanlarsen 3 months ago

    Xiaohongshu is generally known as RedNote outside of China.

    Reply View 15 replies
    • logancbrown 3 months ago

      To directly answer the question, Rednote is not generally used outside China, and the point about these apps being representative of "global" social media apps is false.

      Reply View 12 replies
      • dluan 3 months ago

        Xiaohongshu is used by a lot of huaqiao outside of China. It has a sizeable overseas userbase, but it also has 300M total users.

        Reply View 1 reply
        • throwawayq3423 3 months ago

          To their point, almost exclusively Chinese overseas until the recent memeing.

          Reply View 0 replies
      • pantalaimon 3 months ago

        It received some popularity among TikTok refugees from the US and subsequently also from around the world by users who got curios about what the fuzz was all about.

        Reply View 0 replies
    • ameister14 3 months ago

      Which is honestly weird. It's Little Red Book, not Red Note, in reference to Mao's little red book.

      Reply View 1 reply
      • lupire 3 months ago

        "Little Red Book" doesn't resonate with people outside China

        Reply View 0 replies
  • hintymad 3 months ago

    Yeah, if "widely used" means that multiple nations and cultures use the service, then they are not widely used.

    Reply View 0 replies
gklitz 3 months ago

> creators may still flock to a credible TT-alternative for better monetization

Seems people are already mass migrating to Rednote. I’m not sure how that plays out though.

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  • hintymad 3 months ago

    Yeah, me neither. Some analysis said the absolute number is large but the percentage is still small. And the migration is more about protesting. Xiaohongshu will need to come up with better monetization schemes too.

    Reply View 0 replies
  • throwthrowrow 3 months ago

    I think it will be a temporary phenomenon. Tiktok people arrived on RedNote last week and were jaw-droppingly amazed at videos of flashy modern Chinese cities, natural wonders (Guilin mountains), beautifully dressed young men and women, tasty food, Luigi fandom, and cute cats.

    For many it was a revelation that the US government/media complex has been systematically lying to them about China. They are arriving at an acceptance that the US is a shabby declining empire dominated by a corrupt elite and heartless broligarchs. Always a good thing to bump up against reality, imho.

    However I think that the US-based population of Tiktok refugees will subside once the novelty effect has worn off. Probably shrink by half in a month. Hopefully there will remain a positive lingering effect.

    Reply View 8 replies
    • cscurmudgeon 3 months ago

      > many it was a revelation that the US government/media complex has been systematically lying to them about China.

      The rational and data-based take is that the CCP censors negative content about China on Red Book. See [1], [2] and [3] from David Zhang, and you can verify this on your own.

        [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LKR8-AxFvJY
  [2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4tMxW77lFBA
  [3] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/N65jFr061_o
      If China is so developed, why does it fight for developing nation status?

      https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202305/1290627.shtml

      > They are arriving at an acceptance that the US is a shabby declining empire dominated by a corrupt elite and heartless broligarchs. Always a good thing to bump up against reality, imho.

      Try making this comment about China in Red Book and see how long it lasts.

      Can you post a video about use of gutter oil in China on Red Book? You can post a video about drug use in SF on Twitter and not get banned.

      Reply View 3 replies
      • DiogenesKynikos 3 months ago

        > If China is so developed, why does it fight for developing nation status?

        Because overall, China is still much poorer than the developed world (Western Europe, USA, Japan, etc.).

        China has some amazing infrastructure and beautiful cities, and many cities, like Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen, are now quite developed, but on the whole, the country still has a ways to go.

        > The rational and data-based take is that the CCP censors negative content about China on Red Book. [...] Can you post a video about use of gutter oil in China on Red Book?

        There is heavy censorship in China, but there's also heavy propaganda about China in the US. Case in point: the videos you linked to come from Falun Gong media, run by a Scientology-like cult that somehow has tons of money (maybe from a 3-letter agency) to spread their own propaganda in the US.

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      • _tik_ 3 months ago

        You should provide more reliable and trusted sources. The link you shared here originates from Falun Gong, a cult.

        Reply View 0 replies
      • Dalewyn 3 months ago

        >If China is so developed, why does it fight for developing nation status?

        Because "developing nation" status confers certain exemptions and benefits.

        China is ruthless about (ab)using every possible trick in the rulebook to take and hold the higher ground, this is just one such example.

        Reply View 0 replies
deepsun 3 months ago

Re. copycats -- VK was also a blatant copycat of Facebook, down to copy-pasted CSS styles.

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  • kgeist 3 months ago

    The very first versions, IIRC. Now they have diverged completely.

    Reply View 1 reply
    • wruza 3 months ago

      The very first versions. VK was just better from the times it only started attracting users.

      Reply View 0 replies