When the US government banned and unbanned TikTok in early 2025, millions of US TikTok users moved to alternative platforms, notably Chinese app RedNote. From a safety point of view, it wasn’t a very good idea: RedNote not only shares TikTok’s cybersecurity flaws, but it also may pose greater security risks. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) investigates the risks journalists face when using RedNote.
RedNote (or Xiaohongshu 小红书, meaning “Little Red Book”) is an Instagram-style app that offers images and short video content on topics such as travelling, make-up tutorials, and fashion. Founded in 2013, it is one of China’s biggest social media platforms with 300 millions users. It is owned by Chinese company Xingyin Information Technology Co., Ltd. which has received significant funding from Tencent (who own WeChat) and the Alibaba Group.
When the US government banned and unbanned TikTok earlier this year, many of its users decided to switch to other social media apps to keep on publishing and sharing content. All of a sudden, millions of international users migrated to RedNote in a short period of time, taking by surprise both its regulators and its users.
As this global popularity was quite sudden, it has not yet been followed by thorough research on the potential security risks of using such an app, and much less information is publicly available compared to WeChat or TikTok. Besides, unlike these two other Chinese apps that have international versions with distinct privacy policies from their mainland China counterparts, RedNote does not have an international version and maintains the stricter Chinese standards of content control for all users. If journalists decide to switch to this social media platform, here are the risks they should be aware of.
Main risks
- Extensive Chinese censorship. RedNote’s terms of service (s1.1) prohibits “improper information” which broadly includes content critical of China or not in line with China’s official political positions. Users who are critical of China or supportive of Taiwan have already reported their accounts being suspended.
- Data collection and sharing with third parties. RedNote records user data and collects browsing records, search history, address book, location and other data in the background. User data collected by RedNote is stored in China, and thus accessible to Chinese authorities. RedNote also shares user data with companies such as Facebook and Google.
- Third-party services operating outside of RedNote’s policies. Any third-party services available on the RedNote platform are treated as independent and subject to their own user agreements and data and privacy policies, which could be even more invasive in terms of data collection.
- Unmonitored algorithms spreading propaganda. While TikTok’s algorithms are monitored by the US-based auditor Oracle, RedNote faces no such oversight. There are concerns that the CCP could influence the algorithms on RedNote to give users a biased, curated image of China. Particularly of concern to journalists is the potential for propaganda content to take precedence over valuable commentary and citizen journalism in what the algorithms would suggest to them.
Recommendations
- Do not publish content critical of China or the CCP on RedNote and do not link a RedNote account to any devices or accounts which contain critical content.
- Turn off all unnecessary permissions. Many device permissions (locations, calendar, address book, etc.) are turned on by default and must be turned off manually.
- Use a unique name and email when signing up to avoid connecting RedNote to other social media.
- Beware third-party services on RedNote which may collect and use data in ways not included in RedNote’s privacy policy.
- Set up Google alerts for news of changing policies or newly discovered security flaws in RedNote to be up-to-date of any new research on the matter.
- Be critical of the content shown to you. If you are using RedNote to track trends and news stories, be aware of the possibility of artificially skewed content and periodically make new accounts to reset the algorithm’s targeting.
→ Read the “How to safely use social media” series:
• Part 1: General recommendations
• Part 2: TikTok
• Part 3: Facebook
• Part 4: Instagram
• Part 5: X (formerly Twitter)
• Part 6: Weibo
