RedNote is breaking down the Great Firewall of China

I turned to Xiaohongshu during the pandemic. At a time when I couldn’t visit China, the Chinese social media app (also known as ‘RedNote’) was a little slice of the motherland when I was bored with Instagram or Twitter. I was hooked immediately: like Instagram, the app is good for beautiful pictures and well-produced reels. It also has cute animals and an excellent sample of the dry wit of Chinese millennials. I’ve probably swiped through hours, maybe days, of short videos of beautiful street scenes from Chinese cities, vlogs from people who have swapped mega-cities for rural villages, cooking videos from all corners of the country, Mandarin comedy skits and dance routines in Han dynasty costumes.

But in the past few days I’ve barely recognised my Xiaohongshu timeline. English dominates and there are almost as many white faces on the app as Chinese. In a development I didn’t expect in 2025, a swarm of young American TikTokkers (#tiktokrefugees) have come to the app, fleeing TikTok’s imminent de facto ban in the US.