Abandon Ship! TikTokers Flock to RedNote Ahead of U.S. TikTok Ban

First and foremost, I’m going to start this article by saying communism sucks. #Freedom #Don’tTreadOnMe. That being said, the newest trend of American TikTokers flocking to Chinese-owned RedNote ahead of the TikTok ban out of spite for our government is well…kinda hilarious. RedNote downloads are skyrocketing and users learning Mandarin has jumped by 216% on Duolingo.

I shouldn’t be laughing, but I’m laughing.

I haven’t signed up for RedNote myself. The idea of agreeing to their commie terms and conditions gives me the ick. However, I appreciate the message that those angry with the looming ban are sending, which I can only describe as “I will literally shoot myself in the foot before I do what you tell me to do, U.S. government.” Oh, and “Suck it, Meta.”

Whether you like TikTok or not is irrelevant. What is at stake here is our government overstepping their bounds—which they’ve been doing quite a lot lately. First it was the order to quarantine and shutter businesses. Then it was strong-arming us to take a vaccine. And now mommy-dearest is grounding us from our favorite app fOr OuR sAfEtY.

So, yeah…people are mad. And I feel like Senator Rand Paul succinctly summed up why.

Newsweek reports:

“I haven’t had a chance to read the ruling yet, but very disappointed,” he told reporters on Friday. “170 million Americans express themselves on TikTok on a daily basis, and it’s just wrong for the government to ban it.”

He said the national security and data privacy risks Congress cited “were based on accusations, not proof.”

“They’ve never been tried and found guilty of sharing information with the communist government or any of that,” the Kentucky senator said. “They’ve actually offered, through our Foreign Investment Committee that oversees foreign investments, they’ve offered to have the data here. They’ve offered to work with Oracle to house the data in the United States. They’ve offered to have an American board. In fact, it’s misreported that it’s a Chinese company to begin with. It’s owned—60 percent of the company is owned by international investors.”

I don’t know about you, but I’ve already been the victim of my data being leaked by U.S. companies some umpteen million times. And you know what I’ve been offered? Some credit monitoring and a weak apology. Tell me again about how the U.S. government cares about my data?  

Maybe flocking to RedNote is a stupid move, but it’s a stupid move I can understand and find some humor in. My hope is President Trump puts a stop to this governmental overreach. But in the meantime, I’m gonna laugh at this expert-level troll and say, “Ni hao, ya’ll!”