The bizarre surge in popularity for Chinese social media app RedNote has sparked alarm among policy experts who warned it carries even greater security risks than TikTok.

After the U.S. government threatened to ban TikTok, American users discovered an unlikely haven: Xiaohongshu, a Chinese social media app.

TikTok users fleeing the ByteDance-owned social platform ahead of a crucial Supreme Court decision on its future sent a rival Chinese app to the top of Apple's charts in the US on Monday. While the exact number of downloads is unknown,

Why China smells so bad,” read the caption of the post that the Pakistani doctor shared on Instagram. The video has gone viral on social media.

State media hailed RedNote's success among American "TikTok refugees" as a repudiation of U.S. government "demonizing" of China's development.

RedNote, or Xiaohongshu, became the most downloaded iPhone app in the US on Monday.

Backers of China's Xiaohongshu are looking to sell a part of their stake to the likes of Tencent , among others, in a deal that could value the TikTok-rival at at least $20 billion, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

Analysts are predicting that a recent surge of Americans flocking to the Chinese social media platform RedNote - also known as Xiaohongshu - could be short-lived, as users soon find its content regulations differ sharply from those on TikTok US.

New users have piled in to Chinese social media app RedNote just days before a proposed U.S. ban on the popular social media app TikTok, as the lesser-known company rushes to capitalize on the sudden influx while walking a delicate line of moderating English-language content,

A RedNote rises…clout has been spilled this night.

In yet another consequence of the impending US ban on short-video app TikTok, rival Chinese platform RedNote is seeing a spike in users based in other countries, mirroring the migration of American self-styled "TikTok refugees".